Photographer's Block

March 25, 2021, The Port, Wyndham. East Kimberley.

One morning in early March, I was in the shop paying for some fuel when a local asked me, ‘you been taking many photos this wet?’  

“I was thinking this the other day’ I said.  ‘I’ve probably been out with the camera about twice’  

“Twice! With the wet we’ve had!”

Admittedly it has been a great wet. Overcast skies, big weather systems, creeks flooding, the land green and thriving.

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My lack of photography however, was due to being in more a creative lull. For the last three months  of 2020, I was on a run. Ideas were firing, shooting multiple shots a week for months at a time. However, after returning after the holidays I couldn’t pick it up where I’d left off. The creative process had seized.  

I sat with it though, because there’s always other things do rather than continuous shooting. I did some online workshops and edited and scanned much of my new work. But at the same time I was thinking how there is a fine balance between being inspired and coercing that creativity. So, even when I wasn’t feeling it I would pack my bag in its Tetris like fashion, go out, find a spot, set up the camera but at the very moment when I was ‘meant’ to release the shutter, I hesitated and when through the process of packing it all up. My vision was off and I couldn’t translate what I wanted to say / see to the viewfinder.

And the reason was this. The photos were starting to be repetitive and I wasn’t challenging myself.

I know where the fix lies and where I’ll focus this years’ efforts.

So while it’s been one the biggest wet seasons in years, I hardly put a lens to it.