out of focus...

theSpecialist · Aug 8, 2013

hello all! my name is Abraham. I have joined this site to try to draw inspiration for my photography. I feel as if i'm losing touch with it. maybe it's just a phase. or maybe i'm in a slump. I don't know. where do you draw your inspiration for you ideas? I feel like I have some creative ideas stuck in my head, like a visual thing. like I can see what it is I want to shoot, where I want to shoot, but I can't focus it. I can't get it out. any ideas?? meditation? lol need some help.

pgriz · Aug 8, 2013

In athletics, there's such a thing as overtraining. In the creative fields, there's writer's block, painter's block, etc. For myself, I get past that in several ways - do the photographic equivalent of doing musical scales, or go on a photographic walk without the camera, where you try to work out in your mind what you would have done had you had the camera. Ans sometimes, a bit of time away is the way to let whatever pressures you've had blocking you, go away.

amolitor · Aug 8, 2013

If you have specific ideas that you cannot crystallize, I suggest:

- look at other people's pictures that might be in the same general zone
- take a break to look at pictures that are definitely NOT in the general zone, looking for ideas and stylistic choices etc
- think hard about your idea that will not gel
- .. and now set it all aside for a period of time, a day or two, maybe a week

Repeat. This pretty much tickles the right parts of the brain to get inspiration to occur. Inspiration is an interesting neurological phenomenon, and it seems to depend on the "taking a break and NOT thinking about it, after thinkign QUITE HARD about it" step, to let non-conscious processes occur.