RECOGNIZING WHEN A HABIT IS WEIGHING YOU DOWN
Habits are a funny thing. They can sneak in and take hold without us even realizing it. Only recently did I discover that a stubborn habit has taken hold and is preventing me from moving my photography in the direction that I would like it to be going.
I have come home from a lot of photography outings lately feeling dissatisfied with my images. The process of taking photographs involves a lot of elements – composition, light, color, subject, purpose, location, gear selection and so on. We make choices, with varying degrees of intention, regarding each element in every photograph that we create. When I stopped to examine my own process, I realized that it has become a matter of habit, rather than intention. And I think the problem lies right there.
Even though my relationship with photography spans two decades, I only started photographing wildlife in the past five or six years. Birds became a favorite subject, in part, because they are more accessible than other wildlife and are challenging to photograph (at least for me). I began by spending endless hours just getting the basics down, like tracking a fast-moving subject and quickly adjusting for changed lighting as the bird moves across a scene. Lots of dedicated practice generally is great and necessary so that the mechanics of taking a photograph becomes second nature.
What I did not anticipate though was that all that time spent practicing created a surprisingly hard-to-break habit. Even though my bird photography skills are pretty solid now, I find myself still engaging in the same photographic process on nearly every photo outing.
I go out with my 100-400mm lens at the time of day and to the location at which I am most likely to find smaller birds. When I see a bird moving in the trees or flying past, I find it in my viewfinder, grab focus, slightly adjust composition and hit the shutter. I predictably come home with similar looking images every time. And if I were happy with those images, there would be no problem.
That is not the situation though. For quite a while, I have been longing to apply a more artistic style to my images, to go beyond the usual documentary-style bird pictures. Sometimes I succeed and tap into more creativity to make a photograph that I truly love, like the sandhill crane image above.
Overall though, desire alone has not provided the motivation that I need to change my approach on a consistent basis. I had to dig deep to recognize that my process itself had become a fairly rigid and limiting habit. Just wishing it away was not working so I decided to assign myself little creative challenges, changing one or two elements of the process and forcing a break in the routine. This is how my first challenge went …
PICK JUST ONE LENS (NOT YOUR FAVORITE ONE) AND GO PLAY
The exercise I chose is a simple one that many photographers have suggested over the years: go out with only one lens. I added the restriction that it had to be a lens other than my favorite, most used lens. Also, because a zoom provides so much flexibility, I restricted myself to just one focal length. I chose a prime 100mm macro lens, but if you do not have a prime lens, just pick one focal length and stick with it. The idea is that limiting our gear lets us focus more on composition and light and encourages us to see in a fresh way. And choosing a different lens from the one that we normally use forces us out from our routine.
I have to share with you that I totally failed on my first session trying this exercise. I went to a local walking trail, ready to get creative, but with my favorite 100-400mm lens still in my bag, confident that I would not touch it. After walking around for about five whole minutes, I got frustrated when there was no immediate rush of cool new photo ideas. So, with an embarrassing degree of impatience, I went back to my old tricks, put the long zoom lens on my camera and went looking for birds. Even if you have much more willpower than I have, I highly recommend actually leaving all other lenses at home.
After that minor set-back, I ventured out for round two.
This time, I left the long lens at home and headed off with my much-lighter-than-usual backpack to a nearby state park. Knowing that my favorite lens was not even an option, my eyes adjusted and began seeing subjects and situations that I normally would have bypassed.
Not far down the trail, I noticed sunlight bouncing into the piles of fallen leaves and backlighting a few leaves still on the trees. I stopped to make a few images, just letting myself play.
As I kept meandering along the path, a set of tiny mushrooms in a patch of moss caught my eye. In hindsight, I wish that I had spent a lot more time with the cute little mushrooms and really “worked the scene,” as photographers like to say. I looked for them again a few days later but they already had disappeared.
On a different evening, I stopped at a local greenspace just after sunset with only the 100mm. I really intended just to have a look around because I was due to be home soon and the light was nearly gone. But, after spotting a few raindrops catching light on a rose, I decided to try to capture a few images. Although an intentional “nighttime flower abstract” shoot would produce more refined final images, I ended up loving the dark, moody look in these quick experimental photos. The look is something that I want to explore more in the future and probably would not have occurred to me if I had not done this creative challenge.
The key thing about this self-assignment is that it is not about capturing stellar, portfolio-worthy images. It is about breaking a habit and permitting ourselves to play.
To my happy surprise, doing this simple exercise really did start the flow of new ideas about different techniques and subject matters. As I am writing this though, I realize that my usual photography process is based on such a stubborn habit that it creeps right back the second that I stop paying attention. So, until experimenting on photo shoots becomes the new habit, I will keep scheduling these fun self-assignments.
You can come along on a few of these creative challenges on my YouTube channel Elizabeth Acevedo Photography. Here is the video I made about doing this exercise.
If you also are struggling to climb out of a creative rut, why not try the exercise for yourself? Whether you are a photographer, musician or any other type of artist, just limit your toolbox for one session, day or even a whole week. Grab one piece of gear that you normally do not use and just play and create without expectation. By shaking up the routine even a little bit, I bet that you will notice fresh ideas popping into your wonderfully artistic mind.
Images and content copyright © Elizabeth Acevedo. All rights reserved.