How do you recharge your creativity?

[RichardRitter]

Do a project. Walk into a gallery and book a show 14 months from now. I have done that and it was fun.

I find that the day after teaching a workshop I have to go photographing so I take the 8 x 10 and 3 holders for a walk in the early morning light. Some of my best work comes from those 3 mile walks to the far end of the beaver pond to photograph and back. Sometimes I make it harder and take only one holder.

[Bruce Barlow]

"Shake the cage," as Fred Picker used to say.

Take a 35mm and six rolls and go photograph children at a playground.

Define a project ("8x10 Portraits") and go have fun.

Relax. Just take the camera for a ride and see what transpires. My rejuvenations happen when I get involved in doing it, and remember that it is supposed to be fun. It usually becomes fun then.

Go photographing with John Bowen and Richard Ritter. That's always a treat.

[sully75]

Looking at a great book.

Irving Penn - Platinum Prints.
Robert Capa
Annie Leibowitz - American Music
Linda Butler - Yangtzee Remembered.
Imogen Cunningham

Any of these books and more, definitely gives me ideas.

[sully75]

I also think doing the projects that you are scared of doing is usually the thing you should be doing. But that's hard to live up to.

[Frank Petronio]

Join Model Mayhem ;-)

Find the craziest-looking, obese transexual and do a straight, honest large format portrait.

[Nathan Potter]

Bruce Barlow suggests exactly what I have done in the past; that is define a project. Make it a doable project but one with a bit of challenge. Think about it ahead of time and imagine in your mind how it might unfold. How might the images define your project? I often think for a year or two about a project and within that time I'll scout photo opportunities, maybe even take some preliminary images.

Some projects I've set upon myself in the past might give you an idea.

1970 to 73 - The wreck of the Worcester MA. Union train station.
1974 - Violence, in its many forms.
1976 - Southern New England cranberry bogs.
1980 to 84 - Abstracts in nature.
2000 to 05 - The remains of the Canadian fishing industry.
1990 to 95 - The subsistence farm in New England.
Currently - The marvel of Funk

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Steve Sherman]

A Canon 5D MkII

Some are from Mars, some are from Venus, and you're from where?

[Filmnut]

I'm in one now, and I try to force myself, but the flow isn't there. I have had a stressful year, my Dad took sick, and then died back in the winter, so there was all that to deal with, and work has been a hassle too.
So the creative juices are a bit dry right now. The thing is, in the past, when I've had a stressful time, photography has been a release, the thing that free's me from life's worry, but this time it isn't working!
In the past, it has helped to just go somewhere beautiful, and enjoy the experience, and the photography comes naturally. Maybe right now I'm trying too hard.
Other poster's have said that going to a gallery, or get a book, and that has helped me before also.
I think that there is no real good answer to your dilemma. Give yourself some time, and then go out and try something that seems to make the most sense to you, but don't try too hard, let the flow come to you.
Keith

[Brian C. Miller]

Try this exercise: Take a walk (or ride a bike to cover more ground) through the alleys in your neighborhood and photograph what you see. Back yards, green houses, a bird house, flowers, just the right trash bag, a barbequeue, whatever. I recommend film, and if you can, a press camera. The little hidden vignettes of life that nobody bothers with. This is stuff for a Polaroid camera, or Holga, or 35mm, or whatever. Just go, let your mind go, and see what there is to see. Like the bear that went over the mountain, but not quite so far and not with quite so much effort.

[Brian Ellis]

Read the book "Art & Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

Then buy a decent digital SLR and a two decent zoom lenses. Make lots and lots of photographs with the digital camera. Don't use a tripod and concentrate on things you wouldn't normally photograph - store fronts, people walking, bars, bands, sports, macro, anything that's different than what you do with your LF camera. And don't worry about how good or bad the photographs are, just photograph whatever strikes your fancy. Jump around, photograph from lots of different angles, use a slow shutter speed and swing the camera during the exposure, lie on your back, aim the camera and make some photographs without looking through the viewfinder, just have fun and do everything as differently as possible from what you've been doing with LF.

If you make say 1,000 photographs that way I can almost guarantee that you'll end up with a few you like and you'll be happy and excited about all the fun you had. After you've done that for a while you'll probably find that some particular subject or type of photograph interests you more than others and you can concentrate on those types but for a while just enjoy photographing anything and everything that strikes your fancy.

You'll probably eventually go back to LF but the freedom you'll experience with the digital camera to make whatever photographs you want without worrying about having only a few sheets of film and without having to deal with a tripod, holders, loupes, dark cloths, hand-held meters, filters, etc. plus no film, processing, and printing costs to worry about, can give you a real nice jolt.