Lack of inspiration is one of the worst enemies of any photographer, because it is usually the previous step to abandoning the camera in some corner. It is like the writer who stagnates for hours and hours before a blank page, like the painter stuck before a blank canvas or the sculptor before a formless mass that he does not know how to shape. The frustration caused by the lack of inspiration to anyone who likes to express themselves in a more or less artistic way, is a dangerous fish that bites its tail. Lack of inspiration eventually leads to abandonment, and abandonment causes inspiration to stagnate indefinitely. Because even if you don’t think so, inspiration feeds and if you don’t give it something to eat, it dies of starvation 😉
Now, it’s said quickly, it’s like when you’re sad and they tell you to be happy, as if you don’t feel like being happy, right? It’s just that sometimes it’s not as easy as saying a few magic words, sometimes it takes some action to change the present moment. The same thing happens with inspiration, you have to work on it, take care of it, and go look for it when it decides to leave. You may be in this frustrating moment, that you have lived it, or that you are lucky that you have not (yet) had to go through it. Be that as it may, I recommend that you take a look at the following ways to find inspiration that I am going to propose. Maybe one day (or today) you can get your hands on some of them and help you get out of the terrible, unproductive, museless pit that is lack of inspiration 🙂
1- Visit photographic exhibitions
Do you find it boring? Do you think it does not inspire? Find a photographer that you like, or a theme that fascinates you, make an event of it, enjoy the exhibition, let the magic of the images you are seeing captivate you. Get ideas, modify, improve, copy, open your mind, take a deep breath, and absorb as much as you can of the images of that someone who, when he made them, was overflowing with inspiration. Trust me it works. And the more you you submerge, the more exposures you see, the more it works. It’s like reading and writing, you can learn all the grammar in the world year after year, but the way you really learn a language is when you are constantly exposed to it, when you hear it, read it and write it. They call it linguistic immersion. I apply it to photography and call it photographic immersion 😉
2- Films and/or documentaries related to photography
If you like photography, I imagine you shouldn’t be too far from its cousin-brother: the cinema. And there are usually few things that beat combining two hobbies in one in such a comfortable way: sofa, popcorn, and pure inspiration through your television…
What can watching documentaries by other photographers bring you? I’ll tell you what it brings me. It teaches me to see that my references are humans. It teaches me to see that to get where they got they had to fall a few times and work very, very hard. It teaches me to see how they had to overcome their fears, how they fought (and fight) against adversity, and even against lack of inspiration 😉 It teaches or inspires me to see how they talk about themselves, how they think, how they talk about their work. And all that without moving from the sofa 😉
Here is a small list of documentaries that can help you find some inspiration:
- The salt of the earth (About Sebastião Salgado)
- Finding Vivian Maier
- An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps
- Frame-by-Frame
- The Bang Bang Club (or Photographers of Death in its translation)
- War Photographer (On James Nachtwey)
- Guest of Cindy Sherman
3- Photographic conferences
Another way to approach inspiration through the experiences and experiences of other photographers is to sign up for a talk or conference. There you will not only listen passively, but in most of them, you will even be able to ask or chat with the speaker and, as in documentaries, you will realize, even more so, that they are so human like you or me, that they felt as lost on many occasions as you can be, and that pursuing a dream with passion finally pays off. It has been some time since the last conference I was lucky enough to attend, nothing less than to listen to one of my favorite contemporary photographers: Cristina García Rodero. Despite the fact that it was some time ago, many of her words still resonate in my head, many of her experiences and many of her explanations and experiences are now part of me too 🙂.
4- Share your hobby with someone
Photography is very lonely, and photographers, although we may be tolerated by our loved ones, are misunderstood 😉 Stand here, stand there, let me take a picture of that petal over there, wait, I’ve seen a soda can that reflects the honey, a marble that makes me a fish eye. A moment here, a moment there. They tolerate us, yes, but only that 🙂 And since we know that we are annoying, many times we stop taking many photographs, or we do them running, or we dedicate ourselves body and soul, until we start to hear a sigh here or a snort over there…
Does it ring a bell? Having someone to share your hobby with from time to time is worth its price in gold 😉 You can sign up for one photographic outputto some photographic associationOr any classroom course. In these environments you will be able to meet people who share your hobby with the same passion as you, share experience, ideas and inspiration at high doses 😉
5- Start a photographic project
I don’t know if you’ve noticed that most professional photographers don’t just take random photos. Most of them have one or several projects that they work on and that are the main axis of their photographic production, apart from the photos that they can take more casually or daily. Working on a project allows you deepen in the technique, in the composition and in the way of narrating the story, and it is a great way to learn and be persistent. So find a topic that interests you and that you have easy access to and find the best way to portray it to make it known to the world. Although many times what we see every day seems bland or uninteresting, think that thanks to the Internet, your images will be seen all over the world, and what for you may be something bland, for a person from the other part of the world can be fascinating.
6- Social networks
It’s a double-edged sword but, whether we like it more or less, it’s difficult to want to dedicate yourself to photography and not work in any of these ways. Instagram, Flickr, 500px, Pinterest, etc., are some portals where you can sign up to share your images, receive opinions, comments, exchange experiences with other users, etc. The best thing about photographic social networks in general is that they are free, you have “good” and “not so good” photographers, known or unknown, and they all work without censorship, publishing their images selflessly so that other users can be inspired and take a look at them. Just like you, although sometimes you don’t think about it, you can inspire many other people with your work. For all these reasons, the Internet is a place where, if you know how to catch it, inspiration is in the air 🙂
7- Travel whenever you can
There are few things as inspiring as changing the landscape we see through the lens. New landscapes, colors, situations and lights are one of the best ways to get inspiration flowing again 😉 You don’t have to go to the other side of the world to take photos (although the more different the landscape and the environment , it usually seems more inspiring to us) with small outings close to home, even simply changing neighborhoods or towns, you can have completely different landscapes and points of view.
8- Find yourself a muse
Have children? Pet? Couple-grandmother-father who allow themselves to be photographed? Well, you already have your muses. In my case, I am lucky to be able to pour creativity into my daughters. They force me to constantly take the camera out for a walk, even in periods when, if it weren’t for them, I recognize that the camera would be a little short of food 😉
9- Analyze your work…
I remember how excited I was to go get a developed reel that I had perhaps been waiting for over a week. I remember the emotion when opening the envelope, I remember looking at the photos carefully, with an approving face in some, with disapproval in others. Now some of that magic has been lost. We take the photo and in tenths of a second it appears on our screens, so we can repeat it if we don’t like it or readjust the different settings if we’ve failed at something, not to mention the editing programs that allow us to solve many of these errors or at least improve them. So when the image reaches the screen, it is common that, instead of analyzing the images, we run to solve those small or big mistakes we made when taking the photo. My advice is that before doing it, look critically at your image and see where you have failed or how it could be better. Before cutting it out here or there, be honest with yourself and take a critical look at your work. It is the only way to learn, to improve, and consequently, to evolve. And learning and improvement are one of the best ways to motivate inspiration you can find.
10- …and that of the others
The eye is trained like any other muscle. The more photos you see, the more you analyze the work of other photographers, the more you will learn, the more ideas you will make your own, in short, the richer your photographic background will be and the more weapons you will have to combat and face any photographic situation.
11- Select your images and hang them
Make a selection of your best images, hang them and when you feel that you lack inspiration, stand in front of them, admire them and remember why you do what you do and why you do it the way you do 😉
12- Persevere
Photography is like any hobby, the more you dedicate yourself to it, the more you learn, the more you learn, the more you motivate yourself, the more you motivate yourself, the more inspired you are and the more photos you take. It’s an endless positive chain 😉 Of course, if at any point in the chain you get lost, don’t despair, it happens to all of us at one time or another in our lives 😉 If you need to re-engage, you just have to go back to point 1 of this article and go down until you find the system or advice that works best for you, with the nuances that best suit you and your way of doing things.
That’s all, I hope, as always, that it has been useful to you, if so, share it with a friend in need of an inspirational push. Thank you and until next time 🙂