Welcome back to another installment of Behind the Camera! This year has really been flying by and it is hard to imagine that we are closing in on a new year already. One of the things that this blog has served me so well at, is documenting so much of my creative journey through the years. As we near the end of 2023, I wanted to look back on something that has turned up in various ways many times over the years. This is in no way my annual yearly review which we will see on January 1, 2024. I just wanted to talk about creativity for a bit this month. It is kind of an apology for the previous month’s tech talk on lenses. I do appreciate those of you who read through all, or even most of that one, but this month I want to put you inside of my head for a bit and hopefully put a little light on how creativity is harnessed.
I would venture a guess that very few of you consider creativity as an on/off switch that can be activated when needed. For those creative souls out there, you will undoubtedly be stifling a chuckle at that concept because it just so far from the reality of it all. There are terms like “writer’s block,” or just simply “creative block.” They mean the same thing and are referring to the inability to create at your normal level. This can be long term, or something that is very brief. There are also times when you have creativity overflowing, and you feel like you just have to create something. This is the phenomenon that I want to discuss this month. I look at it like the ebb and flow of creativity, and to an extent, we all experience this in our lives. I used to look at it as a bad thing, or an indication that I wasn’t as strong of a photographer as I thought I might be. If I was good, why did I have creative blocks and times when I was in a funk where I just didn’t feel like making photos? Over the years, I’ve done a lot of soul searching on the subject to try and make a certain amount of peace with these creative ups and downs. I’ve tried to fight my way through the downs, and I’ve tried to “fake it till I made it,” but those times never worked out the way I had hoped. In the end, I have learned to embrace the creative ebb and flow which has allowed my art to become a living and breathing thing. I’m going to share a bit of that concept with you today and I hope that you find it useful in your own world, while it gives you a bit of insight into mine.
Since most of what you read in these pages deals with the times that I am feeling at least somewhat creative, I wanted to start off with talking about some of the common things that rob us of our creativity and keep us from doing what we love. Those are the times that I don’t share here all that often. It should come as no surprise that our mental health is the number one culprit for lack of creativity. If we are depressed or anxious about something it is hard to focus on the things that bring us pleasure. In a very realistic example, you could be suffering from a situational depression which causes you to lose interest in your creative voice, but your mind knows that you should be creating at some point. The difficulty you face in creating leads to anxiety, which then feeds even more into the block, and you start to panic because you think you have lost the ability to create. The more you try to force the issue, the more discouraging things become.
Mental health issues can take a number of forms and can manifest in short term or long-term variants. The current stigma in our society regarding mental health makes those that suffer feel even more alone and outcast which can amplify those feelings of despair. Paying attention to our own mental health is important for life in general but will also benefit our levels of creativity. Keep a support system in place and stay on top of your mental health. If things get too overwhelming, reach out to a doctor or qualified therapist.
Depleted energy levels are another cause for reduced creativity. It is hard to be creative when you are exhausted or filling your waking moments with other pressing issues like work, kids, household upkeep, etc. Creativity needs space to flourish, and that space is in your mind. Regular sleep is important so that you can keep your mind fresh and receptive to ideas and concepts. If you are constantly tired and struggling to get through the day, you just don’t have the energy to think about any kind of creativity. If you do somehow manage to start thinking in those ways, your thoughts will be disjointed and won’t be cohesive enough to act on. This situation will add to your anxiety levels and affect your mental health very quickly.
One of the primary causes for the depleted energy levels would have to be stress. This is the most common form of creative block that I run into. Life is full of stressors, whether they be out of our control or self-induced. Finances, relationships, work, household duties, and world events can all have an impact on your personal stress levels. We all have different stress thresholds, and we react to stress differently. To a point, having a creative outlet can greatly reduce stress because it can give you something to focus on that brings you joy. This was one of the primary reasons I started with photography back in 2005. It was a great way of balancing out all the ugliness that I saw while working as a police officer. However, there will come a time when the stressors get to be too much, and they get in the way of creative thinking. It is usually at this point that your energy levels are starting to get depleted, which can then start affecting your mental health. See any resemblance to dominos at this point?
All of these issues are related to one another and can compound each other if allowed. This was the pattern that I would go through so many times, and I thought that if I pushed through, things would get better. They never did…until they got better on their own, due to the natural course of events. This is the part of the equation where we have to be very self-aware and recognize what is going on inside of our head. It can be a tricky dance for sure, and one that we each must do to some extent in our creative endeavors.
There are also two other primary causes of creative block that I haven’t mentioned, which I think are the day-to-day battles that we all have to fight. They go hand in hand, and I think are universal to creatives across all fields. Perfectionism and a fear of failure are two concepts that feed off each other any time you set out to create something. They are always present, but at times are much louder than others. These didn’t factor in when I was getting started because I was still learning the basics and knew that I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. The only way that I could fail is if I gave up, which actually helped to push me along to create that next photograph. I knew every time I pressed the button, I was expanding my abilities. As time went on and I got a good knowledge base of the skills and techniques that photography called for, I started to strive for perfection. I would fear failure with each photograph, especially when it came to posting them online. It was just a nagging thought in my mind most of the time, but it was a constant companion.
These days, I’ve been a photographer for nearly two decades and know a fair amount about the craft and the art behind it. I know that perfect will never happen, and I will always want to do better which fuels my desire for new treks and new subjects. But what if I fail to continue to improve? Failure can take on many forms and many degrees. There are times when I find myself too wrapped up in trying to create the perfect image which will never happen that I stop progressing on the whole. This starts leading into a self-induced stress which morphs into…well, you know.
The fear of failure is very real for me. I’ve invested a large portion of my life into my art, and I expect to see a certain amount of success in the world of photography as a result. I also expect success from every image I shoot, but the reality of it is that most of my photographs are destined for the trash. Every time I start a trek, or a new project I have a strong fear of failure because I have put so much importance on what I do. Most of the time, I am able to quell those fears and just take a leap of faith that it will all turn out well. Other times, that fear of failure is paralyzing, and it effectively keeps me from even trying. I see this a lot when I am out driving and looking for something interesting to shoot. I’ll see a lot of potential but can’t bring myself to stop and try to photograph it. I’ll make excuses about how the light isn’t quite right, or the sky isn’t good enough. To a point, those arguments are true, but I have a feeling that the real reason is I just don’t see success at the end of the effort, and it is that fear of failure that keeps me from pulling the camera out in the first place. If I can’t make a perfect image, then I just don’t see the point in trying because the image and experience will fail. See the lousy tricks that our brains can play on us?
Now that I’ve successfully depressed you with all the causes of creative block, I want to change the tone a bit. There are ways of countering these stealers of creativity. As I alluded to, those causes of the blocks vary in intensity, so there are many things that can be done to work through them, but these are not guaranteed by any stretch of imagination. These are things that I have done over the years to spark the creativity and get back in the swing of things, but your mileage may vary.
One of the easiest ways to get out of a creative slump is to just get out there and try to create something. If you just show up and have creativity as a routine, you can sometimes get those juices flowing once again. This was my answer for many years, and it came to a head after witnessing a suicide in 2009, while at work. That event pushed me into a low-grade PTSD for a very long time and while I was trying to counter the stress and emotional turmoil, I forced myself to go out and create photographs. I don’t think that any of them were all that great, and I don’t remember much from that time; but showing up as a photographer helped me stay linked to a life before that event and allowed me to have a life raft of sorts. The issues that I had from that were larger than photography, and it took a long time to really recover if you can even say that I have recovered. During the more typical slumps that I had experienced up to that point, this technique usually worked in a short amount of time, and it seemed like the way to go when I wasn’t feeling creative.
The next step is to just step away from that creative outlet when you are feeling totally blocked. That was what I essentially ended up doing in 2011, after realizing that the creative spark was not coming back any time soon. I refer to this time as the “great tantrum” as I slowly stopped going out for photos. Weeks turned into months, and the months started piling on top of each other as I questioned everything about my photography. Eventually, I decided to sell it all, and I found a buyer at a local photography studio. I mean I sold everything down to the bag the camera was stored in. I made enough from the sale to buy an anniversary ring for Toni and a bicycle for myself which started the great diversion from photography. Over the next two years, I became an endurance cyclist which went a long way in controlling my PTSD as well as improving my overall fitness. I don’t regret doing the cycling one bit, and I think that getting rid of the camera equipment was the right choice at the time. Having it in the closet was a stressor and a constant reminder that I had failed at photography. Refer back to the dominos from earlier in this piece.
I was in bad shape, but as I got stronger (mentally and physically), I began to feel creative once more. I recalled going on event rides through the country, or on rides along the Blue Ridge Parkway where I started to miss photography and the creative process. I would look at things as I rode and wonder how a photo would look of those subjects. I found myself creating more thought out photos of the bike to support the blog that I was writing at the time. All of the clues were there that I had my creativity back, but I wasn’t convinced until I got pushed off the road by a U-Haul in the early days of November 2013. That set things in motion to where I sold the bike and rebuilt my photography kit once again. It was that time away that ultimately brought back the want to create again. Of course, over the following year, I struggled with the perfectionism traps and the fear of failure as I had outgrown my current level of skills with what I wanted to create. That brought on another block and another run at cycling that lasted a couple of years before I was ready to learn what I needed to and put the new camera gear to use in earnest. Of course, by that point, the camera was already dated so it was no longer the “new” camera that I thought of it as.
Something else that can be done to get the creative juices flowing again is to constrain your options a little bit. I’m going to get into this in much greater detail for another month, but essentially, having too many options can overwhelm you and cause you to shut down. If I am feeling less than creative it is possibly because I am looking at too many options for subjects. Do I feel like photographing a barn, an old car, waterfall, landscape, abstract, cityscape, person….you get the idea. Sometimes I just have to throw a dart and pick something specific. Once I have a very specific subject in mind, I can focus on just that and build something off of that basic idea. This works a good bit of the time and will usually put me in a situation where I get inspired by other things that I see. These are the blog series that happen after a long break from sharing. I’ll go out to photograph one specific thing and then over the following weeks, I’ll go out every few days to photograph something that I saw or a tip that I got during a previous trek. That is the best example of how just trying to photograph a single thing can lead to something much more involved which feeds into the creativity.
Something else that you can do, but with a certain amount of caution is to spend some time looking at work that inspires you. I say do this with caution because when you are in a creative slump, the last thing that you want to do is to compare your work to others’ that you already think is better than yours. This can cause some spiraling very quickly if you don’t pay attention. The idea is to look at the types of subjects that they are photographing and how they are doing it. Don’t compare your work, just see how you can implement some of their elements into your own photos. You can even try to recreate a certain concept with your own photos. These little challenges can often light a creative fire.
Remember though, the key is to challenge yourself to do something different. You could even try a whole new type of photography which is something that I regularly do to keep things fresh. A trend that I have seen a lot on YouTube lately is for photographers to suggest buying a new piece of gear to inspire you to create. While there can be some validity to this if the gear is something that you need for a specific type of photograph you are wanting to try, I feel that this is an investment with limited returns in most cases. If you look at the whole picture (see what I did there?), you will see that the ones suggesting that you get a new piece of gear are the ones that provide you with affiliate links. They make a little commission on things that you buy if you use their links. I provide those same links, but I don’t suggest that anything I use will alter your level of creativity. Creativity comes from within, and not from your camera bag. Yes, we need the tools to realize our vision, but there are very few must-haves in the world of photography. Most of what we carry with us is there to satisfy our urge to collect gear.
We’ve looked at a lot of different options that I have put to use in my own life many times over. It really seems like there is an answer to most every creative block. That was what I used to think years ago, but as I have matured as a creative person, I have learned that this ebb and flow of creativity is just part of the process. A creative block is not the end of the world, and certainly shouldn’t be a cause for undue stress. I’ve been through this cycle more times than I can count and looking back over the past six months or so, I have created some of my best work at a pace that I have never seen before. I’m not going out just because it feels like I haven’t had the camera out in a while. I’ve been going out every few days it seems because I want to, because I have that creative urge and have been inspired. This contrasts with other periods when I just don’t go out at all, and don’t actually think about photography on a serious level, at least not the need to create. Am I any less a photographer in one of these situations? Is there something wrong with me if I’m not going out to create new photos? Years ago, I thought just that, but my opinion has changed greatly in the recent years.
Whether I am going out every day on a trek, and creating more images during a month than there are days in it, or I’m sitting at home binge watching something on TV, I’m still a photographer. I know that if pressed, I can make myself perform behind the camera. I’ve reached that level that even if my creativity is tapped out, I can create images, but if I don’t have to, I don’t force it. What I mean is this, I have learned to embrace that ebb and flow of creativity. I enjoy times when everything inspires creativity and the want to get out there. I also enjoy the times when I just don’t feel like putting forth that effort. It is at those times when I can concentrate on other hobbies or tasks that need to be done. Maybe, I just spend some time in my recliner watching things on television. I do these things without remorse these days because just like when I had a full-time career, I had vacation days, and other time off. As a creative, we don’t punch a clock, and we are always “on” unless we aren’t. Those times when the creativity falls away, I look at that as vacation time now. It usually means that my mind needs a break, and there is usually a good reason for that.
What I have found over the years is that many of my longer term creative slumps have come at the end of a string of uninspired photographs where I start to lose interest in my own work. The fear of failure becomes very real because I am no longer improving, and that goal of a perfect image seems much further away. That builds up my stress levels and eventually the depression domino falls. I would then try and force myself back into the game by showing up with the camera and taking a photo. I would find myself right back in the midst of the uninspired photos that started the slump, which would then force me deeper in the hole. The more I actively tried to climb out of it, the deeper I got until I started thinking that I need to sell everything and take up building scale models. Yeah, I’m always one thought away from another great tantrum.
In reality what was actually going on was my mind needed a reset. It needed that vacation away from work to process what it had learned over the past however many days when it felt creative. Our subconscious is an amazing thing and will work in the background without us even knowing. I embrace the creative slumps these days for the most part. I let them happen, and know that if I don’t force things, there will come a morning that I just want to create and there will be no denying that urge. That is when inspiration comes from within, and I start to see the world as possibilities rather than forcing myself to find something to photograph. It is almost as if a switch flips in my head and I go from being content doing anything but photography to being ravenous for creating photographs. At these times, the subject doesn’t matter, and neither does the weather. I Just get my kit and go knowing that I will find something that tickles my optic nerve. There is no thought put into it, I just go where the wind blows and I find something.
What I have learned is that when this happens, especially after a lengthy down time, is that the photos that I create are done differently than before. There are new angles, new compositional ideas, and even new ways to edit the images. The only thing that I can think of is that while I am not creating, my mind is going through everything that I have done, things that I have learned, and restructuring how I view the world. I come away with photographs that I would have never been able to capture before, and now that I can see them, I can start to improve on them. It is no longer the same old way of shooting things; it is like I have morphed into a new photographer. It is these creative resurgences which I look back on as huge leaps in my abilities. This is usually the start of a period of quick creative growth in my abilities and skillsets. I can usually pick these phases out when I am going back through the old blogs which I do from time to time.
I could graph it I’m sure, with regular treks showing a steady increase in visual interest that eventually flattens out right before a slump with few productive treks. Then all of a sudden, you will see quick successions of treks with a much steeper increase in visual interest until it starts to flatten out again. The quality of the images as a whole is usually noticeably better. Those down times are times when I am improving, but in a backstage kind of way. You hear it all the time, and I am a huge proponent of it, practice makes perfect. The general idea behind that statement is that to get better, you have to go out and practice your craft regularly, and the more you practice, the quicker you will improve. That is completely true, but I think that they forgot part of the equation here and that is the importance of reflection. Sure, you can practice every day, all day, but unless you take some time to review what you have learned and organize it in your own mental filing system, you are just filled with information that you can’t recall as needed.
What I have learned over the years is that the creative slumps, are your mind’s way of reflecting on what has been learned and accomplished. During this time, we are creating a mental filing system that makes these new ideas and concepts available to us on the fly. Without that organization, it would be totally random how we could recall things. That is what leads to the stale periods of creativity. You create the same things because it is what you know. After you have time to organize those new concepts, you can pull from a much larger knowledge base when you are engaged in your craft. This is when you will practice at an accelerated pace and learn more things along the way. At some point, you will again need that downtime to organize the thoughts and let your creativity grow.
We, as creatives, need to embrace these ebbs and flows as they come. Don’t feel like you have to be creative all the time. If you aren’t, there is probably a good reason behind it, and you should try to figure out what that is before you do anything. Is it something situational like earlier this year when I had to do all kinds of repairs on the exterior of the house? I had very little creativity for months dealing with that. Is work stressing you? Then there is probably something that needs your attention more urgently than your creative endeavors. Is there something going on with your personal relationship? Yeah, better deal with that before you head out to create something else. Could it just be you feel like you are in a rut? I used to view these ruts as a bad thing, and I would try doing everything I could to break it. Come to find out, that is just your subconscious trying to tell you that it needs a break to evaluate what you have learned. Give yourself time, and just step away for a bit. In all of these examples, there are valid reasons for your creativity to falter and for you to put attention elsewhere. When the other things are dealt with, and your mind has the chance to filter through things, you will find that your creativity will come right back and stronger than ever.
There is a caveat that I feel that I must warn you about though. When the creative slumps start to drag on and on, for extended periods of time, there might be a call to use one of the tricks from earlier in this entry about jumpstarting your creativity. I’m not talking about a week or two when you don’t feel particularly creative. No, I’m talking about when it has been an extended period of time. How long that is depends on a number of variables, but the best way I know to define it is when you start to forget that you are a creative person. I’ve run into that a couple of times in the past when I start to embrace a new routine and start to see that there is no time for photography. This is when I start to take note and will force myself to get the camera and go out to shoot anything. It is those times when you start to get comfortable not being a creative that you have to figure out if you still want that in your life. If you go out and feel nothing, then you might have to look at things in a little more detail to see how you need to progress. That stage of your life might have run its course. On the other hand, if you go out and you find excitement in holding the camera, working through a composition, exposure, and things like that, you will remind yourself of something that you love doing. Things will just turn on in your head and that creativity will come rushing back in.
Our minds can get lazy sometimes, and it can be nice to just avoid thinking creatively for a while. After a while it becomes more effort to change gears back to that creative space, and you start to put it off. You find other things to fill your time, and eventually, you feel like it has been so long that you won’t be able to achieve the same level that you left off with, and that brings about the fear of failure and all other dominos that we talked about. If you can just go out and get that first photo in the bag, that fear of failure will fade away and the newfound creative urges will hopefully surface once again.
The key is understanding that creativity is not an on/off switch, and we don’t have the control over it like we might want to have. Our own creativity is as much a living and breathing being as we are. Having learned to embrace the ebb and flow of creativity has been such a freeing experience for me, and I have never been so at ease with my photography. As I have mentioned, I’ve been on a roll recently with lots and lots of treks with tons of photos since the Summer. The last couple of weeks have been oddly quiet in terms of treks though. It isn’t due to a lack of creativity, but rather needing to focus the time on other things. It is true that after my last trek, I had a period of several days’ worth of editing and writing blogs. I also did a blog about some recent people photos that I had done around the same time. After that, I still felt like I wanted to go out and create, but the sky was too devoid of clouds to excite me, and I had a lot of things to handle around the house. Since that las trek, I have had a dentist appointment, helped our youngest find a new car to replace one that is just wearing out, fully detailed and serviced Toni’s car, washed the 4Runner and Miata, and mowed the yard for the last time. All of these things would have started to become stressors had I been having to fit them in with photography, so I’ve just stepped away from it for a little bit of time to get things handled while I wait for that next bout of inspiration. I’m not stressing it and should be back behind the camera in short order once again.
Well shoot!! You know what just happened? I snuck in one last trek for the month of October. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. Just hours after writing that last paragraph, I drove by a scene that I have been interested in photographing for some time now, and inspiration hit thanks to the lighting and the leaves. This is just an example of what can happen when your creativity is alive and well. Even when you aren’t really trying to create, it will cause you to do just that. Since everything in the world has a balance, we should embrace the down times as much as we embrace those times when anything will spark a little creativity.
Thank you for joining me again this month for this chat about the ebb and flow of creativity. I hope that this has resonated with you and provided a little insight into my photography as well as your own pursuits. More than anything, I want to inspire other photographers out there to be the best versions of themselves. All too often, we only see other photographers at the top of their game, and always able to create no matter what the situation. We just don’t see this other side because there is no evidence other than the lack of evidence. As you go through the cycle of creativity, don’t be too hard on yourself. Embrace the ebb and flow of your own creativity. They are both necessary in your own development as they are in mine.
Join me next month as we chew on another topic for the last Behind the Camera of the year. My plans right now are to continue this by talking about how limiting your choices can be very beneficial to photography. It might be something different though, depending on what comes up in the next few weeks. Whatever the topic, I hope to see you back here once again. Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog either on the sidebar of this entry, or the front page of the website. That way, you will be sure to get notifications of each new entry as they are published.
See you soon….
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