Help! I'm teetering and afraid of what might happen...

[rdenney]

This has happened to me so many times I've lost count.

1. Buying or changing equipment doesn't solve the problem. Sure, I may be active for a while with new stuff, but often the motivation to do anything serious just isn't there.

2. This is the busiest time of my life until now. I've promised I will not make myself feel guilty when hobbies slide. If the work I was doing was pointless, that would be intolerable. But for now anyway it's compelling, despite being exhausting, so I just have to wait for a time when things slow down.

3. Go back and mine old stuff to present it in a new way. I have two books I want to assemble from past work. I think doing that would motivate me to do new work, simply because I'd be see some results.

4. Prints stacked up and leaning face-towards-the-closet-wall will demotivate anyone. And that's where my prints have ended up of late. I'm looking for a new use for prints; haven't found it yet.

5. The equipment you have now work fine. If the results aren't compelling, it's not because of the equipment. If I changed to a better digital setup, it would be to improve efficiency. But I know I'd miss image-management tools that I have with a view camera and I'd be where I am now.

6. Several times, my slumps have resulted from thinking my own work is just not relevant or meaningful. Since I have a hard time figuring out the manifestations of "relevant" and "meaningful", I don't know what to do to fix it. That's why I'm mining old stuff--to remind myself of when it did seem relevant and meaningful. Maybe I've talked myself out of subjects I do well for no reason.

Rick "whose action in many areas has been limited to mental rehearsal" Denney

[Otto Seaman]

Get rid of all the excess baggage you can to be unencumbered and guilt free. Almost any photo gear can be purchased used should you decide you want it for a real purpose. Do the same with other hobbies and possessions. See how much you can save, practice economy and frugality, be modest.

If you're really drawn to do photography then a cheap little camera won't hold you back. And you'll have money in the bank to travel and/or buy exactly the right camera/tools for your project.

Seriously, I try to downgrade my photo gear whenever I can. Making life simple and pure is harder than accumulating a bunch of stuff.

Look at all the jacka$$es with all the best gear but who are stuck taking dumb, boring, stupid photos... archivally processed, exactingly calibrated tripe!

Sell it and burn the rest.

[ROL]

This is a recurring theme in these forums. Anyone who thinks digital will solve their problems, creative or otherwise (aside from a prostate check) isn't likely to gain any further inspiration from a change in tools. The number of gear fetishists inhabiting forums is legion. The lure of the latest tool simply beats down true inspiration. Given your points, I don't believe you are in a "slump". Your digital desires are leading you astray for the same reasons that your complete analog kits have. Having all the toys is not the answer. Having something to say and a desire to say it photographically is. Simple. And relatively simple tools are all that is really required. A well equipped darkroom is not required to make inspired photographs.

I may have fewer tools for taking pictures and making photographs then anyone who considers themselves to be a photographer. I only have what I need to express myself, and no more. I know that having more gear won't be a recipe for making better prints. But then, I now mostly consider myself a printer, principally a maker, not a taker of photographs. Expressing myself through photography is no mere hobby for me. It is integral. One thing's for sure, if I had such a crisis, I certainly wouldn't care what anyone else had to say here or anywhere else. You gotta find that in yourself, if not already present.

Photography is such a democratic medium, especially these days, that anyone who can hold any kind of picture taking device whatsoever is a photographer, whatever that means. Maybe you're not a photographer. There are so many other enjoyable activities in life, why get beaten down by something you may not even really believe in? Don't be afraid. Face it – up, down, and sideways.

How's that for a cold 'snap out of it!' slap across the face?

[Jim Jones]

. . . maybe immersing myself in digital techniques, learning Lightroom, maybe inkjet printing or some other digital specific stuff as a "break" might give me the disconnect time I need to rekindle my interest in photography. . . .

Yes, indeed. Get a copy of Photoshop Elements (earlier versions are fine) and download Irfanview for a few basic manipulations, and make the most of scanned past and future LF negatives.

[Joe Smigiel]

Phil,

I took a look at your website to see the kinds of things that interest you. With the exception of a couple still-lifes, you seem very drawn to architectural subjects photographed at moderate to long distances. I might suggest you take a turn at photographing people for a change. Could that be a new challenge for you? Or perhaps do a Ralph Gibson and only photograph subjects at a specific close distance, say 3 feet and closer. Or maybe buy one of Reinhold's meniscus lenses, abandon the f/64 sharp aesthetic and try being a fuzzy-wuzzy for a time. Gum prints maybe? Gum mighht in fact be a great crossover process for you. You could create color separation negs on the computer and print the diginegs using the gum process. Or you might simply use a camera negative and contact print it.

I have to say that digital leaves me cold and I would never do what you are contemplating. Can you generate the same interest using a mouse and pushing a printer icon than you can brushing star dust on a fine paper and then making an image formed by light appear in the tray? For me, a lot of the interest is the process, not the final image. I already have the image in my head. I like to play in the mudpile, not the office.

You seem to have it all in terms of equipment and you have refined your printing to the point of making Pt/Pd prints which is like the zenith in terms of monochrome printing. Why not go way the hell back and do the first simple and humblest process, salted paper, and see what you get. You might find the simplicity refreshing.

I guess I'm trying to say a novel subject, process, and approach is the answer rather than accumulating a lot of new digital gear that you don't seem particularly drawn to. 8x10 Pictorialist portraits shot with a soft-focus lens from 3 feet distance and then contact printed and manipulated in the gum bichromate process - something like that ought to rattle your cage. Set a few new parameters and stick with them for a time and see what you get.

I'm curious. What is your favorite image on your new website? When was it done and what did you use? Was it a typical combination for you?

[Leigh]

Cameras are tools. Experience dictates which is most appropriate for a given task.

As an OT example, I have perhaps 100 different screwdrivers.
When I want to screw something up, I know exactly which driver to pick.

The same is true of photography...
I shoot everything from half-frame 35 (Tessina) through 8x10 on film, plus 35mm and MF digital.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses, with which I'm well familiar.
I seldom have trouble deciding which to choose for a given task.

LF is a slow, methodical, time-consuming process at every step.
Perhaps you yearn for the speed and spontaneity afforded by 35mm work.

I go through phases in my hobbies, setting one aside for a few years, then coming back and wondering why.

Do what you enjoy. When the day is done, you can't do it over.

- Leigh

[Jim Galli]

Buy 2 Model A Fords. And a Model T, just to round things up.

[Bill Burk]

Maybe I'll take up the harmonica for a while...

Exactly why I remain dedicated to photography. Have you heard me on the harmonica? Trick question. Of course not. But that's my point. I am so bad at music that my having more than a few musical instruments would be pointless. My buddy and my brother-in-law, both able photographers, are also good musicians, and for them each instrument brings them a certain sound and satisfaction. They can walk away from their photographic accomplishments because they have something else they can do just as well.

[Mark Sawyer]

Same magic bullets, different caliber...

[Regular Rod]

Please pardon the goofy title of this post, but I'm really worried I might be coming upon a serious crossroads in my life - or in other words, my photography. Let me try to explain and maybe with your help, your wisdom and your reason, I'll come out of this intact -

1. About two months ago I bought a DSLR, a Nikon D300 from a well known forum member. I've owned DSLRs before, but I'd never seriously considered making "The Switch" and I never really thought of using a digital camera as anything other then a "Polaroid back", if you know what I mean.

2. Recently, I came to the point where I think I have everything I could want or need with regard to the kind of large format film photography that I do. I have nice cameras in formats up to 8x10, I have every lens I think I need, and I have my darkroom, such as it is, set up and fitted out about as well as it possibly could be. I even have a pretty compete set of lighting and studio type gear, though rarely used, just because it's appropriate to a Photographer's kit! Basically, I'm at that rarefied point where, given a blank check to buy anything photography (equipment) related I want, I cannot easily think of anything at all.

As I'm sure it is with many - most? - of you, there is almost always something you're saving for, searching for, dreaming about, etc., with regard to some lens, or camera or whatever. In some strange way, always striving for that next piece of gear, then finally getting it, then working on the next thing, kinda makes it seem (to me anyway, in retrospect) that you're actually striving for and occasionally reaching, photographic goals.

3. And now, after all that, I seem to be coming into the biggest creative slump I've yet experienced - and I've been through some bad ones! I'm at the point of thinking that I could probably sell everything and have enough for a very nice Full Frame, or maybe even Medium Format digital outfit, including Mac computers and inkjet printers. I'm afraid I only feel this way because I'm not currently "striving" for any new gear right now and my photography seems lifeless, pointless and hopeless.

Please help! I don't [think] I really want to go digital!

Stop buying anything except film, paper and chemicals!

Consider a project. Imagine you have been commissioned to illustrate a book about something near to your home.

Go to places where you have already made photographs that pleased you and maybe make some new photographs at a completely different time of day or night...

If you must buy some equipment, you could order a Travelwide to make large format photography more convenient for you.

On the other end of the see-saw, go out with only one sheet of film in one dark slide then hang around some place where you want to make an image and plan how it will be and work it all out with so much care that the sheet of film may as well be the very last sheet of film in the world and you have the responsibility to make the last ever photograph to be made on film. Then do it again on another day... and again... and again... etc.

Look at the interiors of your friends' homes. Consider how they arrange the day to day objects of their lives. See some images in your head of their unconscious art created by their sense of where stuff lives in their homes and how you may excise what is there to make into a photograph.

There are no limits to your imagination...

Don't give up, work harder in your mind before getting the camera ready.

You can do it!

RR