I took a bit of time to think about what to do about this blog post. Should I separate it into its separate pieces: on photography, on the shoot itself, and on being a lover of cars? Should I keep it all together and run the risk of lacking cohesiveness or an overall theme? Should I even make a post about creative block?
Then I decided to just write whatever I wanted because regardless of organization, as long as it makes some sense and is grammatically correct I am happy. This will be an exercise in self-reflection and going past the photos into what goes on in the mind. We’re going to be introspective.
Part 1: Creative Block
Creative block is new to me as I’ve only been doing photography for about 3 years. Sure, you can experience block earlier, but I never really had issues previously. Every artist at some point experiences a creative block where they can’t create new content. Is it good enough to post? Am I actually improving? Is my content actually good? Do people actually care? I’m sure many who pursue a creative outlet have asked themselves this question.
For me personally, it hit earlier this year when I dusted off the camera and went to a few events to shoot. I particularly remember the Edmonton Motorshow and Driven Calgary as somewhat difficult to enjoy and photograph. One of the reasons was that I wasn’t sure if my content was going to be any “better” (heavily subjective) or of decent quality for people to care. Looking back at the photos, I’d describe them as generally quite vanilla. Same angles, same overall editing procedure/presets, same cars. Imagine doing that for 3 years and you’ll start to wonder why this problem hasn’t cropped up earlier.
With any problem, there’s a variety of factors involved. Is the car scene just stale and seeing the same thing over and over again disrupting creative flow and imagination? Am I becoming jaded? At this point I’m asking more questions than providing answers so I’ll say that it’s a combination of the above.
Focusing on how I’m jaded, a lot has to do with the process. I do think that having a streamlined process is essential to success, especially if you’re being paid (fun fact: I have never made money doing photography…yet). However, there is also the issue of following the same steps, using the same angles, doing the same things. Same camera settings, same locations, same shots. A lot of it can’t be helped. Driven shows are at the same locations every year and no one has enough money to buy a new car and modify it to show every year. But that’s where you have to look outside the box. Are shows the only place you can stretch your creative muscles and shoot?
