There's no worse feeling than running into a creative rut. Your Instagram runs dry, you haven't touched your camera in weeks, and you feel uninspired.
What do you do?
There are a few things you can do actually. You will hear some people tell you to go on to Pinterest or Instagram and look at what your favorite accounts are doing but I wholeheartedly disagree. When I look at the amazing content on social media I feel more uninspired than before because I know it will be a long time before I can travel around the world and get dope landscape shots and street photography. Social media and I have a strictly professional relationship now as I only get on there with the intent to engage and boost my brand, not to just look around because I'm bored but more on that in a later post.
What I recommend doing when you feel uninspired is look at art in different forms. Read books, go to a museum, look at paintings, or even read articles about things that interest you. "But Taylor," you ask, "my other interests have nothing to do with photography! Am I supposed to take pictures of the art or recreate scenes from a book?" No. I mean, you can if you want to but that's not the point. The point is that you simply get your imagination working again. Become inspired not by the actual work of others, but by the sheer magnitude of forms in which people can be creative.
There is an art museum in my hometown that I love to go to sometimes just to walk around without even thinking about photography because it destresses me and helps me remember why I choose to create art. I create art for the sake of art. I believe in the healing powers of art in all forms and I will take any opportunity I can to access those powers and refresh my mind and soul.
I know this was a more wordy blog than usual but I think it helped me just as much as you in clarifying how we can get out of these creative ruts from time to time. To summarize: to become more creative in photography you must take breaks from photography. The best workers are the ones that take advantage of their time off to recalibrate and relax.
I hope this blog helps acts as a reminder we can both come back to when we get in these ruts, so get out there and EXPERIENCE life before you capture it.
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