Realigning My Inspiration

For the first several years of owning a DSLR I have pursued nature photography almost exclusively.  I dabbled in portraits and have photographed a few buildings here and there but, mostly, I’ve been in the woods and hanging out at local lakes catching up with anything that looked interesting.  It served me well; I learned so much about composition, lighting, my camera’s limitations, and my own limitations.  Then, one day earlier this year, I got bored.  Big time.  I could hardly stand to strap my camera around my neck because I knew I was going to be seeing the same old thing.  I tried everything I could think of to shake things up a bit but to no avail.  As I look back on my year of photographs I can see whole stretches of time where I photographed absolutely nothing worth keeping.  The stuff that was good certainly wasn’t great and the few images I really love aren’t very marketable so…

Where do I go from here?

I’ve been reading a lot of David DuChemin’s blogposts this week through the release of his new ebook titled, “Vision is Better 2″.  (He’s actually who inspired me to re-open this blog and try to pass on what I can to anyone who wants to read along.)  He reminded me that life really IS short and we have to get on with it, regardless of what gear is in our bag or what job we do from 9 to 5.  I’ve gleaned much deeper stuff from his writing, too, but the main thing that’s come out of all this reading is that Ican’t stay stuck in the muck of the mundane and  sit on my laurels.  I can never afford to stop moving forward in my life or my art.

In the past six months, I dropped out of moderating over at BirdPhotographers.net because I had seen it all so many times I simply couldn’t look at it any more.  I had critiqued over 11,000 images in the past 3 years and my ability to think of anything new to photograph in a way that would be inspirational to others was completely kaput.  I had run out of steam, out of interest, and out of will.  But, something funny happened along the way – I took a sabbatical and realized I love to write as much as I love photography and so I approached one of the owners at BirdPhotographers.net and asked if I could interview the other moderators and members, posting one new piece a week.  He jumped at the idea and we’re now in our 3rd week of interviews and everyone seems to be responding really positively to them.  Through my writing, I got my mojo back for photography and that brings me back to this blog.

So here I sit.  Now what?

I’ll tell you what.  Well, actually, I can’t tell you what yet because it’s a brand new idea and I don’t want to tip my hat but reading what David had to say this week got my creative juices flowing again and I have one doozy of an idea.  On top of that, I had decided to pursue my love of black and white photography throughout next year and this idea fits in perfectly with that part of my passion for photography.  I think I might be on to something…something so great and so inspirational to me and to so many others…well, we shall see.

But to say I’m stoked would be an understatement.

I’m so stoked that I’m making a list of all the crap I can sell so I can finally buy the few key pieces of gear that are missing from my bag and then watch out…I will be on a photographic rampage for the next two years as I birth this new idea of mine.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about all the things I want to write about here – about texture and mood and abstracts and pattern.  I’m thinking about how to find your voice as an artist and what to do once you hear it calling back to you.  I’m thinking about getting out there and living life so deeply that it hurts to crawl home each night.

I will always love nature and will, no doubt, always be a nature photographer at heart – but it’s time to realign my love for photography with something that will stretch me into the next frontier and produce not just another photo of a beautiful flower but the expression of beautiful emotion as well.

It makes me giddy just to think about it.