around the block

The planets were aligned, and not so nicely I might add. I’ve had a case of writer’s block for more than a week which is why you’ve only seen photos posted with very little narrative. Coincidently I am also having a case of photographer’s block. As I shared with my friend Sue the other day, my recent photographs are very ordinary and I feel stuck. So why do we feel this way and what can we do about it? In searching for answers, I found some surprising similarities.

Writer’s block has been attributed to the natural rhythm of the creative process where ideas flow but then need time to percolate and the brain a chance to recharge. Whoever it was that said “you ARE writing, you just aren’t typing” might as well have said “you ARE creating pictures, you just aren’t pressing the shutter button”. I like the symmetry of this thinking because every successful photographer will tell you that there is a difference between taking a picture and making a picture. The temporary loss of the ability to begin or continue writing–and in this case, creating pictures–has also been blamed on a lack of inspiration. The obvious question is then where do you find inspiration? Writers will switch to another medium like watching a movie or attending a play or even reading others’ work. They might also do something out of the ordinary to spark their creativity by trying something new. One rather interesting cause of writer’s block is anxiety and based on my own experience I would say the same is true for my photographer’s block. The anxiety may come from a need for perfectionism or the gap between the imagined life of a creative and the reality. Yes, writing a photography blog is definitely not as easy as I first thought it would be.

Enough said about the phenomenon, let’s talk about what I’ve done to get around these blocks. With Freeman Patterson’s workshop coming up in September, I started to re-read his books beginning with photographing the world around you–the book on which his workshop will be based. I found it refreshing to go back to the basics and in fact Patterson encourages photographers to do exercises similar to “chunking” or “focus words” which writers do to cure their blocks. Speaking of focus words, I have added the photographic dictionary to my list of links to the right. This elegantly simple website is organized around the photographic interpretation of a single word. It makes me want to go out and shoot my own interpretations. The community of likeminded souls is also very important to anyone in a creative field. Writers have writing groups and I am lucky to have my PPSOP friends, three of whom are starting another course with me on Friday. Alex, my friend from Seattle will be in Vancouver next weekend and we’ve started to plan an entire weekend dedicated to photography. One of the events we’ll be attending is the pixelatedimage blog get together where David duChemin has arranged for a few photographers to meet up at Kevin Clark’s studio. I can’t think of a better way to get inspired than to hang around with people whose work is so amazing. And as you can see, ironically, I have gotten over my writer’s block by just writing about it.