Artistic crisis, mid-life crisis, or am I just bored?

[Bruce Osgood]

@David
I think l'm going to follow some the suggestions. Namely buy an inexpensive camera of a format I've not used before...probably MF Square. Something like that. If it doesn't steal my hart... No great loss and if it does I'll with struggle with GAS, the way it was meant to be

 

[David Brown]

I've addressed some of the comments in this thread in the blog. (link below) I'll address most of the rest in a day or two.

Again, thanks to everyone who has offered advice either here, or by other means. I appreciate all of it. I just can't follow all of it.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I've addressed some of the comments in this thread in the blog. (link below) I'll address most of the rest in a day or two.

Again, thanks to everyone who has offered advice either here, or by other means. I appreciate all of it. I just can't follow all of it.

I think just listening to other people can be inspirational. My whole life I have not enjoyed photographing in color, so I figured I should try it. Found some old Kodak 400 in the drawer and started working my way through it. Having a blast. Never thought I'd enjoy it so much.
I guess just shaking it up once in a while can be a good thing.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

How can you possibly be bored? I have more ideas for images in my head then I will ever be able to shoot. If you are bored with photography then you are bored with yourself.

By the way, it is bad juju to use other people's words without attribution.

 

[dwross]

Learn a new(alternate) method of printing. Learn to make emulsions and hand coat paper. Revisit your old negatives and reprint them. ...

This is exactly what I did eight years ago when I suddenly was 'done' with my photography. Great advice for total Boredom Banishment!

 

[eddie]

Revisit your old negatives and reprint them.

I did this when I was in a similar place. I found negatives, from my "early days", which I didn't have the skills to print well. Revisiting them (and being able to get good prints) was helpful. I was able to gauge progress...
Another thing I've done is walk in areas I had photographed, but without a camera. It didn't take long to wish I had one with me. I saw images everywhere...

 

[David Brown]

I started a blog. Mostly for my own benefit, ... I'm working through trying to re-invent myself as a photographer, and writing this stuff down helps.

Alas, writing this stuff down has not helped. I took the blog down. I had already gotten to where I was spending a couple of hours a day writing - most of which was never published. And then what I did publish was not well understood. My fault - not doing a good job of communicating.

So, given the premise that the blog was for my benefit, and I was not benefiting, it's gone.

The couple of hours a day will be much better spent with photography than with a word processor.

Please, I am fine. I am moving in a different direction with my photography, which is a good thing. I guess I over-dramatized the situation, but I only started this thread to promote the blog. So, I don't intend to consult this thread any more, either.

Thanks everybody. False alarm. :confused:

 

[BrianShaw]

... but I only started this thread to promote the blog. So, I don't intend to consult this thread any more, either.

Thanks everybody. False alarm. :confused:

 

[jp498]

Don't plan it out too much. Be like Calvin and Hobbes hurtling down a hillside (photography metaphorically) in a wagon/sled with no brakes.

As you were into photography for business, you are planning your future in recreational photography all too businesslike, where failure is not an option and there is no such thing as too much analysis and planning. Be like Calvin, have fun, wipe out and dust yourself off, time is flying by.

 

[Black Dog]

Silver machines

I think this is very good advice.

Me too-cooking, cycling and hillwalking are all great IME!

 

[MartinCrabtree]

Man. The first blog I decide to follow and it goes nuclear. Damn. I actually figured out how to do the RSS thing.

Oh well good luck with that picture taking thang.

 

[benjiboy]

P

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

 

[BradleyK]

Me too-cooking, cycling and hillwalking are all great IME!

+1. I have been fortunate that, photographically-speaking, my dry patches have been few and far between. When they have occurred, I, too, pursue other interests - cycling, hiking and reading come quickly to mind. In terms of a creative "resurrection," I have often found that music and literature can get the creative impulse kick-started. And living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world also helps...

 

[darkosaric]

Travel. If you have money - go abroad for a month or two. Visit places you wanted but never did.

With camera and film of course .

 

[Ghostman]

The couple of hours a day will be much better spent with photography than with a word processor.

More and more I realise that the opposite is true. The document and the picture go hand in hand. Unless we are just trying to make nice looking pictures and trying to manifest somehow our vision, concept, art, or philosophy we need to write. I learned a tremendous amount reading Diane Arbus' Revelations. Her writing is as intriguing as her photographs and without it we would all be lost in postulation about what she was doing. I also read John Blakemore's book and again, it's philosophy first, pictures second.

Writing helps formulate and brings ideas to life, literally, like characters, they'll write themselves.

If any of your work has any concept behind it, if there is any thread woven into the fabric of your work, if there is any conversation between the younger self and the present self (and there is!) then you need to create the lineage, not only for yourself, but so that others who find it can decipher the code.

One thing about your initial post that struck me was that you said

but I have reached a point where I do not need to ever expose another frame of film that looks like my existing work

Your have answered your own question there. You have two choices; 1. stop making anything that looks like your existing work or 2. print. Imagine a musician saying 'I know every note, every chord and there's nothing else I can do with them'.

You're either making pretty pictures or you're trying to get a piece of your soul born from a sacred place so that it may resonate forever.

Good luck and much strength to you.

 

[Ghostman]

Travel. If you have money - go abroad for a month or two. Visit places you wanted but never did.

With camera and film of course .

Or maybe without camera. You'll see things that you'll miss and perhaps rediscover the reason you own one in the first place.

 

[Alan Klein]

Hmmm. I'm vacationing to Hawaii next month with my wife. I plan on taking a small P&S that I'll wear on my belt. So when I get home, I can make a DVD slide show of the trip. However, I'm at the age where vacation shots don't seem as exciting as they use too. Maybe I should leave the camera home and just enjoy the trip and take photos with my memory.