Not "feeling it": Diagnosis anyone?

[Bruce Barlow]

"Beauty is optimism made visible"
- Tillman Crane

[evan clarke]

You should hang these prints up, live with them and decide what is wrong. Don't be rash, sometimes you photograph on trips because you're on a trip trips, not because of great subject matter and astounding light...EC

[Merg Ross]

Daniel, you sound depressed, don't be. I spent most of Saturday processing film and printing; the results, negatives and prints, departed with the morning trash. You can't always hit a home run.

Some random thoughts: 8x10 cameras, and related technique, take time to master, and prevent total visual freedom, in my opinion. The whole process should start with your vision and end with your vision, without any technical interference. Sure, you need the technique to present your vision, but it should not become an end in itself.

So,let me ask about your vision. Have you, in past years, been excited with your photographs, technique aside? Do you have a portfolio of favorites? Most likely yes. Look at them, and look at your work from Iceland. What is missing in the recent work; spontaneity, composition, emotion?

You have come a long way in a short time; don't throw in the towel, but take a break from the 8x10 and return to it later. As suggested, spend time at museums, study sculpture and painting, and then return to your photography. If you truly have the passion, you will not be absent long.

Perhaps, in those remaining 8x10's from Iceland you will have some winners!

Merg

[Daniel Stone]

good morning everyone!

thanks for all the helpful hints, I was talking with a friend last night, and he recommended what many of you have just have. Take a break. For a while. So, I think that I might do just that.

I'm in need of work(not photographic work) anyhow, so this might give me a few months to get my mind off of photographing(at least in LF terms).

John Bowen: again, mucho appreciado man! Your insight and candidness sure helps .

Merg Ross: thanks, its great to hear that even the "masters" have bad days too . I hope another one doesn't come for a LOOOOOONG time for you. Composition: my previous work from other formats hasn't really excited me all that much. In all honesty, I've been considering trashing the whole lot of my negatives up until this point(except the Iceland ones and a few select others) and just starting fresh.

scanning: I'll try and see if I can get access to a 1/2 decent scanner that can handle 8x10 negs, but it might be kinda hard.

many thanks all!

-Dan

[paulr]

"Inspiration is for amateurs."
- Chuck Close

Just as working while uninspired is for professionals. Which explains why most of the great art produced in photography over the last 180 or so years has come either from amateurs or from pros on their days off ...

So I'll happily stay amateur, and will never dismiss the question of inspiration. When it dries up, it's like the world stops turning.

The OP has gotten a lot of good advice on how to deal with it; I'll reiterate and mix it up a bit:

take a step back, re-evaluate what you're interested in exploring; try something a little different (another type of photography) or radically different (join a punk band); look at a lot of contemporary painting; read a lot of contemporary fiction or poetry; give yourself contrived and ridiculous assignments; try a bigger/slower or faster/smaller camera; start exercising regularly and furiously; take a break and stop thinking about it for a while.

For most people inspiration comes in cycles with dry spells. It's natural. It's also natural to feel lost during the down time, and to want to get out of it as soon as possible. For me the cycle has sometimes been about other interests holding sway ... photography is only one of my creative pursuits, and it serves me in different ways from the others. I can't pick and choose which one's going to best fit my life at any particular time. There have also been times when I felt blocked because I wouldn't acknowledge that I was done with a project ... I'd said all I had to say (whether or not I'd said enough or said it well) and it was time to move on. This can be a scary prospect, especially if you've become invested in the work, but I've learned to face up to it.

[jon.oman]

I'm not in a rut I just have too many things that interfere with my pursuit of photography.

[Brian C. Miller]

I looked up the Chuck Close quote, and I like the full quote:

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get the work done. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lighting to strike you in the brain, you’re not going to make an awful lot of work.”

Some of my best stuff has been done when during Non Impediti Ratione Cogitationis mode. Just wandering along, stopping and photographing. It's only after I had made contact sheets and shown them to somebody else that something stood out.

Photography can be hit and miss, but if you don't swing, then you won't hit.

[Kuzano]

Is it a given that everybody improves as the format gets bigger? I doubt it. Perhaps 4X5 is where you see best. There are plenty of people out there producing high quality bodies of work with 35mm, Medium Format, and even digital.

Where is the proof that if any of these photographers moved up one level, their vision would produce higher quality work, and their work become more desirable?

I think not. If that were the case, then wouldn't we all be lugging around and shooting 20x24, or even a much larger image capture device mounted on a trailer behind our cars?

Go back to the 4X5 for a few weeks and see if you haven't just exceeded your proven niche. Nothing is inherently wrong with the work produced by many photographers with 4X5.

[David Karp]

Keep swinging. You are in a slump. Plus, you changed bats. You might like your old bat better, or you might not.

Nobody avoids a slump. You just have to play through it. A break is OK, but you have to make photos to make photos that satisfy you.

[Ben Syverson]

So I'll happily stay amateur, and will never dismiss the question of inspiration. When it dries up, it's like the world stops turning.

That's the problem -- when the inspiration "dries up," the world DOES stop turning for a lot of people, and they develop complete paralysis. Some never make art again. The myth of true love at first sight found in romantic comedies is not enough to sustain a long marriage, and the myth of "inspiration" is not enough to sustain an artistic career.

The point of the Chuck Close quote is that you don't need to wake up every morning completely inspired and ready to make a completely fresh masterpiece. Every artist or photographer you admire got to where they are by getting up in the morning and doing their routine. Most days, it probably felt pointless to them. But if you're disciplined, you will wind up with an incredible body of work.

I had a teacher in school who said she made one new piece every day when she was in grad school. You better believe there were days when it felt sisyphean. But she went in as a good artist, and came out a great artist with first-class gallery representation (and an MFA as a token).