keeping the creativity from drying up...
The funny thing about being creative (or at least believing yourself to be creative) is that creativity itself comes and goes. There are times when so many ideas clog my head, I have to record them into a notebook or in a word document. Then I spend the next several weeks trying to figure out how to make it happen. The flip side, naturally, are the times when the creative juices aren’t flowing at all. The assignments draw blanks, no new projects come to mind, and I’m left with a slate of unimaginative results.
I find that either results in a feed-forward type of cycling. The more creative I feel, the more ideas I generate, the ideas I generate beget more ideas…etc. On the other hand when I’m “slumping” I press more, yielding more blanks, which draws frustration.
I go Stuart Smalley on myself and tell myself, “I’m good enough, and people like me…”, or something like it, and I go out and force myself to take a picture, then another, and then I begin to feel better, and I realize the process of taking pictures is therapeutic in itself, even when the results aren’t great.
I’ve recently been “slumping”, but last weekend I had a completely free day. No assignments on a Saturday. Finally I could get back to checking in on some personal projects I’ve had on the back burner for weeks. I have been taking pictures of an interesting father/daughter antique shop in the west end of the county. The biggest issue is that it’s about an hour away from the office, so making it out to Bristow, VA can sometimes be impossible.
So I swung by, equipped with my gear, and laptop with photos from the last session of images a couple months back. Unfortunately, only the father was home, so instead of taking more portraits, I sat down with him and showed him what I had already worked on. His son was there to see as well, and we enjoyed a conversation over the next half hour looking at a dozen or so images.
And there it was…again. I hadn’t taken a picture at all, and yet I felt validated and realized that I was pointed in the right direction. These people enjoyed looking at my work, and appreciated my efforts. Sometimes keeping up with established relationships, however small, pay dividends. I know it will be easier to get back out there, and make more pictures, but as it was, it was just nice to show some work to people that really wanted to see it.
I find that either results in a feed-forward type of cycling. The more creative I feel, the more ideas I generate, the ideas I generate beget more ideas…etc. On the other hand when I’m “slumping” I press more, yielding more blanks, which draws frustration.
I go Stuart Smalley on myself and tell myself, “I’m good enough, and people like me…”, or something like it, and I go out and force myself to take a picture, then another, and then I begin to feel better, and I realize the process of taking pictures is therapeutic in itself, even when the results aren’t great.
I’ve recently been “slumping”, but last weekend I had a completely free day. No assignments on a Saturday. Finally I could get back to checking in on some personal projects I’ve had on the back burner for weeks. I have been taking pictures of an interesting father/daughter antique shop in the west end of the county. The biggest issue is that it’s about an hour away from the office, so making it out to Bristow, VA can sometimes be impossible.
So I swung by, equipped with my gear, and laptop with photos from the last session of images a couple months back. Unfortunately, only the father was home, so instead of taking more portraits, I sat down with him and showed him what I had already worked on. His son was there to see as well, and we enjoyed a conversation over the next half hour looking at a dozen or so images.
And there it was…again. I hadn’t taken a picture at all, and yet I felt validated and realized that I was pointed in the right direction. These people enjoyed looking at my work, and appreciated my efforts. Sometimes keeping up with established relationships, however small, pay dividends. I know it will be easier to get back out there, and make more pictures, but as it was, it was just nice to show some work to people that really wanted to see it.
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