Tapping into the Curious Soul

There are days when I just don’t feel creative. I feel like everything I shoot is the same, and I’ll never come up with a shot that’s fresh and new. But I’ve made a commitment, so I have to shoot something. Tuesday was one of those days. I let the day go by without taking one photograph, and then realized at 5pm that I’d lost my light and needed to find a photo. So I started hunting around the house, going to my fallbacks – photographing the cat and the dog, and food. Nothing felt fresh.

After taking a number of photos I loaded the best shots on to my computer and took another look. I had a couple that would work as safety shots, and this helped me relax. I remembered that I needed to change my perspective, but laying down and looking up wasn’t going to do the trick. There was nothing new in the house, but there was surely something that could be looked at with new eyes. So I looked for something in the house that maybe could be looked at from a new angle or perspective, and I found my husband’s typewriter. It sits alone on a small table that I found at an antique store, in the corner of the dining room. My husband found it at a yard sale a few years ago, and we know nothing about it’s history. I’d like to think there’s a story in there. So I made this photograph, and it’s one of my favorites of the year so far.

When I took my first photography class, the teacher reminded us that what makes a photograph is not what you photograph, it’s how you do it. I’ve found this hard to remember when I’m not feeling creative, as I tend to over think things a bit. But the lesson here for me is to open my eyes and tap into the curious soul inside me. Interesting viewpoints can be found in the mundane, we just have to look.

1 Comment

Join the discussion and tell us your opinion.

My Camera World
January 22, 2009 at 10:37 am

Sometimes its good not to worry about the technology part of photography. Just set the camera to Auto mode and whenever some object or though gives you that sparkle then just fire away. Learn from each image and not judgmental. The fun part is seeing in print or on the screen the creative thoughts your eye discovered.

Niels Henriksen