I wish I could say I lost the creative spart along with the summer, but I cant. I lost it long before then. Dull days, rain and a new nine to five job might be helping me find what I'm looking for but they are far from the reason. I'm am disapointed in myself for letting my photography slip so far behind but I just lost my drive. I no longer even have a propper gallery site where I can, as i used to, proudly display lates shots and creative inspiration.
Other than my resent job hunting and some side project I think the main reason I put my camera aside is flickr. I've spent alot of time looking at what other people can do and have been doing I have put such pressure upon myself to produce the "perfect" picture. By spending so much time looking at what other have done, and even my past work, I set the bar too high and now when any photograph failes to reach these high standards I slowly and quitly put the camera aside and build another web site.
The above photo was taken last April at a photography course I went to in Pitlochry. Personally I already feel the image has poor use of colour, the compasion is basic and the image has nothing new or interesting that will get anyones attention and as such I stopped trying after that. Some of you might have wondered how I came back form Vienna with out a single photo to show for my trip and this is why. Despite some of the gratest scenery in Europe I never felt I could do it any justice by taking a photograph. Which has started a vicious cylce the is destroying my creative process.
The reason I'm writing this all down now is because I doubt I will be the only one to feel this way and I am starting to realise the message we should take from it. Photography is like surgery, we can hide our mistakes and making mistakes is what makes us better photographers. There is almost no situation we will walk into knowing exactly what shutter speed to use of what appreture will produce the "perfect" shot. We learn best from our mistakes our trial and error approch can some time produce the best results. While non of us will set out to take a bad photograph if we do not allow ourself to take a risk and experiment we can never learn from from them.
Today I realised how badly I had allowed things to slip and decided to make a change, to post this photograph and strive to bake rules and experiment. To make mistakes and learn my art. I do nothing now I never will.
So my message to anyone else who is feeling held back by "the summer blues" or anything esle.
Just take the shot, take alots of shots. Learn and take more. Brake the cyle and grow your art or you might never try again.
