Looking Not Taking
As I often remind students of mine who have run up against a block in their photography: This often signifies an incipient change in your style and vision. It may seem discouraging when one starts to feel a sense of stagnation, or being dissatisfied with one’s work, but I see it as more of a sign of progress, indeed, much more indicative of progress than constantly being really into one’s own work. In fact, the latter is often a sign of actual stagnation, something that even (especially?) established photographers, who have well-known styles and bodies of work that their audience knows and expects from them, often encounter.
I’ve been going through a bit of this shift myself lately, especially as I’m just beginning to go over the roughly 16k photos I’ve taken this year so far. This? I think to myself as I look at the files in Lightroom. Again? Shots I would have rated higher before as getting less star-love as I look for something different, more interesting to me now than the me who took the photos on the day. It’s an interesting progression; when I start posting newer work again, you might or might not see any difference. But I feel that something has changed, even if I can’t quite put my finger on exactly how.
And I’m seeing a difference in my current shooting as well. I still photograph whatever catches my eye, but these days I am struck by how often I notice scenes and potential shots that make me think: Yeah, that looks like something I used to photograph.
That might seem depressing on the surface, but what’s actually interesting about it is that, as I am no longer compelled to take that particular photo, I can just pause and observe said scene without any pressure or bias, leisurely observing how whatever potential I might have once seen plays out in reality, thinking to myself, had I moved here, this particular angle would have happened, whereas if I’d moved there at this point, another possibility would have sprung into existence. And because I’m not actually worried about photographing it, I can disregard thoughts of what settings to use or how I might be perceived moving around with my camera as the scene happens, observing a simulation of what might have happened and analyzing and comparing that to how I expected things to go down.
It’s actually quite illuminating, even rewarding. I highly recommend it as it not only informs you of how you once worked, that additional information and knowledge can in turn inform how you move going forward in whatever direction you find yourself heading.
So when you’re tired of your work, feel like you’re just not interested in the same things, not seeing photographs when you’re out…maybe just recognize that, as an evolving human being, your interests, your vision, what you see as your range of potentials are always in flux, and it’s likely that even though you haven’t defined exactly where you’re going just yet, know that you are in fact going somewhere.
And know that there’s no rush; you don’t have to feel obligated to take the same photos as you used to, because odds are that, if you just keep walking through this strange, improbable world of ours, curious and open to what’s next, it will find you.
