Photography - Getting Past the Creative Slump
Do you ever get to a point in your photography where you just lose the motivation to go out and shoot? If you have, you aren’t alone.
Hitting a creative block is just like getting burnt out. You do something so much or with so much ferocity that it breaks you down after a little while, to the point of saying, “I don’t want to do this right now”, or, “This is so boring”. Many of us, if not all of us, have or will hit this block or slump at some point in our creative journey. And this isn’t just for photography; it applies for all creative arts.
A lot of the problem is that we get stuck, we feel like we cant do anything else or, it might be that we aren’t confident in ourselves enough to try something different. Don’t be afraid of this because it isn’t a bad thing. The bad thing is letting this slump or block rule our creativity. Something to remember is that your art is exactly that; YOUR art. Yes, we enjoy sharing our work with people and, if possible, making money from our art but, we still have to enjoy it. There has to be some kind of catharsis behind our making of art, no matter if it’s painting, photography, graphic design, or one of hundreds of others. Loving our art is natural and needed, but what do we do when our art doesn’t feel the same or doesn’t bring that same joy as before?
The first thing is to think about what you love about your art or how you got into your art in the first place? Was it the adventure of finding something new? Was it being able to disconnect from your daily grind? No matter the answer to this, USE that answer. Try something new or different. If you’re a painter, try painting a different genre or, try painting with different paints. Experiment.
Photographers can do the same thing. Try shooting something you have never thought about before. If you are normally a landscape photographer, experiment with shooting a product or experiment with your landscapes with different lenses.
Ultimately, do something out of your comfort zone. You could even broaden this more and completely switch the art. A photographer could try painting or drawing.
Some articles that I have personally read bring up the idea of setting a schedule. For me, i’ve been in this creative slump and had these blocks before and I tried doing this. For me, it didn’t work. My opinion is that creativity doesn’t follow a schedule so, you cant really plan this. With that being said, I think for someone else, that may be the right thing. Stuff like this is subjective. It will work for me but not others and vis versa.
Now, maybe another problem is that you’re overthinking your art or you’re being too rough on yourself. For me, when I started my journey in photography, I didnt care about the outcome of the photos, I cared about just going out and taking them. Be spontaneous. If you think of an idea for your art or something new, follow it. Just keep doing something.
Ultimately, there are a million different things you can do to try and get out a creative rut but, the biggest thing is to not stop trying. Don’t just stop creating as a whole. Keep working on new things and talk to your fellow artists. We are all family and we all want to do the same thing at the end of the day.
What slumps have you hit? How did you get past them? What would you suggest to your fellow artist? Lets us know!