Dealing with Stress in the Field

[Brian C. Miller]

Ah, this makes sense now. Driving in California (L.A. region, in particular) has always driven me nuts. I've learned to stay away from popular places like that.

I'd recommend taking a trip without the camera, just tool around. However, with gas prices what they are now, I'd definitely rent a high-MPG car to do it.

BTW, I looked in the LF archives and I couldn't find anything about Chris Jordan and travails of LF photography. If you could point me to a link, I'd like to read the original article/post.

[Stephen Willard]

I leave for the Colorado mountains in early July with two llamas, two LF cameras, 9 lenses, film, tents and anything else needed to sustain life and my addiction to photography. All toll, everything weighs in with about 240 pounds of gear. I do come out periodically to refuel and tell my beautiful wife I love her, but I remain there until the snow flies in mid October.

Is it stressful? At first yes, but if you persist and do it long enough, then you become familiar with the patterns and behavior of nature. She becomes your lover, and you know all of her moods. You know when to shoot and when to leave your camera cased. You come to realize her moods, that most deem hostile and stressful, are absolutely essential for your exploits, and you take them only when she permits.

[paulr]

Quite a few reactions here that like, "I don't relate to this at all ... for me it's all roses and bla bla bla ..."

The first time I heard people complain about being blocked, or anything similar, my reaction was the same. I couldn't relate to it so I thought they were whining about nothing. Then a few years later, my motivation hit the wall and I was lost. It took a long time to find it again.

The short version of the story is, telling someone who's feeling blocked that you never feel blocked is NOT helpful. Ever. About as helpful as you having food poisoning, and me consoling you by telling you that I feel great.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Thanks Paul for your empathy,

Most of you folks are misunderstanding my post. I'm not stressed out by the act of photographing, or being in nature, but all the events that must precede it. Being an outdoor enthusiast is actually what got me into photography, not the other way around. To all of you who claim that your photographic endeavours are completely stress free, what do you do when you're stuck in a traffic jam on the way to a site? Or wake up in a tent, covered with muck and water? Or go three nights without sleep because some yahoos in a NPS camp site next to yours decided to get drunk and party around the camp fire last night? Any time you enter the outdoors, events will be out of your control, which can be stressful to anyone. I'm just looking for ways to cut down the stress- thanks to all of you who've answered the question for your good ideas.

Brian, here's a link to the Chris Jordan post for you and anyone else interested:

largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/501270.html#543435

I'd like to hear from Chris if he reads this how often he feels that way.

[Brian C. Miller]

Paulr, interesting that you should mention being blocked.

Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth fantasy series, would put a "blog" of sorts in the back of his books. In one of the books he talked about the word processor he used, which was written specifically for book authors. As he would write, thoughts would pop up, and he would put the thoughts in a side-bar column, and then zip back to writting his novel. He said by doing that he never got blocked.

I think that a creativity block comes from blocking other thoughts. When all the thoughts flow, then the thought stream you want flows, too. If you get a creative blip about music, write it down. If its a creative blip about pottery, write it down. If its a creative blip about (fill in the blank), write it down. Let them all flow, and your main idea stream will flow quite fast indeed!

Brian:
OK, now I see what it is you're getting at. I thought the post was about Chris Jordan.

I do my best to take a Zen approach to things. If you can get it, read The Zen Way to the Martial Arts, by Taisen Deshimaru. Also, read A Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. These are small books, crammed with a lot of stuff. I have to reread them every once in a while.

There is a little maxim:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference." --Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer

You cannot change the rate of the flow of traffic. Therefore, focus on something else, like where you will visit when you arrive at your destination. You can't change the yahoos (without going to jail) or the muck and water, so the best thing to do is camp somewhere else. When I owned a Suburban, that was my mobile campground. I slept in the back of it, far away from people. (Come to think of it, the park rangers might like to have a chat with the yahoos about their noise and being drunk and disorderly.)

Once upon a time my job stressed me out so badly that I was stressed doing photography. Now there is something that I can change. I quit that job, and it was way overdue that I left it.

[John Kasaian]

Paulr,

I don't think the term "block" as an artistic block is neccesarily synonymous with stress, although I agree that a block probably would cause stress and stress would also be a major contributing factor to an artistic block. If a person is under the gun to produce, because of forces outside or internal, it can be either a motivating factor or a perilous misfortune. Different people react differently in these situations. Controlling stress isn't an easy thing (and in some arenas stress is, if I remember the professional development courses I had to take, a neccesary component) but IMHO stress often masks other things going on in One's life. It isn't that I don't understand---quite the contrary---but an art/hobby/passion whatever ya callit, I find represents itself as a challenge that, if not surmountable at least isn't fatal. Victories are sweet and defeats are a ticket to experiment with some other subject/process/ whatever you will (if you choose to accept it in the first place---fighting, even for a lost cause---is so much more interesting) Stress OTOH, especially too much of it, can kill you---or at least mess you up real bad.

Hey, I'm not a psychologist but I know what I've seen happen too many times to ignore it or not sympathize with someone troubled by stress OTOH what works for me works---at least for me.
If your art ever stops being fun---I mean so much fun you can't stop smiling when you see a shot and uncase your camera---then I think it has also stopped
being something worth expending your energy on. Give it a rest or consider moving on

Unless of course you're getting paid for it---and even then its iffy.

I remember a really fine lad who lost an arm in egypt while circumnavigating the globe by himself in a sailboat. A real outdoorsman who spent the rest of his days in an Dilbert cubicle in the bowels of a huge regional insurance office building. He had a collection of photos he'd taken of his boat and the ports he'd called on mounted on the walls of his cubicle and changed them regularly. It was his way of dealng with his particular brand of stress.

If OTOH it is the things that lead up to a shoot that stresses you out---the logistical stuff---I don't
know what to suggest except to read one of Vittorio Sella's accounts of mountain climbing with a huge camera that used glass plates to put your own frustrations in perspective.

Good luck!

[julian_4860]

Having suffered a number of times from 'the block' I now see it as a positive sign. As someone once told me, its a sign that there is a gap between the pics you want to make and the pics you are making, so if you get through it you'll start to see something exciting. One thing you can do is change your routine - go to different places or use a different camera - try a holga, 35mm, MF, ULF. If you just repeat your usual behaviour nothing will change. The best move i ever made was to stop shooting on the street and go shoot BW landscapes for a while. So if you normally shoot landscapes, spend some time on still life, portraits, architecture. Try thinking of pics in a different way - one of the best teachers (in any subject) I ever had was Charlie Harbutt - he'd give assignements like 'go take a pic of a point of view', 'go show me a moment' ( he also had a thing of stop trying to make 'good' pics and just make pics'). basically just relax and know the block is the sign of somethin good!

[Struan Gray]

I am an ex-marine with Himalayan first ascents in my resume. Camping doesn't stress me.

I have a PhD in experimental Physics, and have spent many years doing original, blue-sky research with equipment whose dimensional tolerances are measured in fractions of a nanometer. View cameras don't stress me.

I am an amateur and photograph only for myself, to find out how my personal way of looking at and valuing the things around me accords with the wider flow of visual culture. Photography doesn't stress me.

That last one's a lie.

For me, getting serious about photography has meant dispensing with the cosy reassurance of anonymous amateurism. I don't sell, show, or publish my work, but I feel a strong compulsion to treat it as if I do: to take it seriously, to judge it. It no longer does me any good to shrug my shoulders and say "mañana". Partly it's a Calvinist guilt thing about how much time and money is going into photography, but I am also beginning to see what artists mean when they talk about a responsibility to their talent.

The really hard thing is that I take my best photographs when I just pooter about and see what turns up. The controlled aggression that drove me through my Commando Course is of no use whatsoever. Neither is the sort of theory-informed, wide-picture motivation that inspired my best science. I have had to learn to trust both myself and providence in equal measure, and that is stressful in a whole new way. Sometimes it feels like walking the plank above a sea of Great Whites.

I don't have any magic cures, but one thing that does help is to go for a walk without a camera, and kick myself over all the wonderful photographs I am missing. This reassures me that the urge to photograph and to see photographically is still there. Another pep pill is to review my earliest photographs and take comfort from the fact that my work has improved, but also that the germs of a personal view of the world have been there all along. Looking at other people's photographs generally depresses me - other photographers always seem so self-assured, goal-focussed and productive - but looking at art in general is a great way for me to refresh my visual wellspring.

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

These days my source of stress is the soaring cost of gas..

[evan clarke]

Stress was not invented too many years ago, sort of like the subconscious. We got along for many centuries before these concepts were foisted on us. You are born, you exist and then you die. You must keep your mind entertained along the way and I think this LF stuff is way better than MTV ( how about all the people who are "stressed out" over television???!!!)...EC