5 Tips to Get Out of a Photography Rut

Every photographer hits a wall, or draws a blank at one point or another. I did so just recently. Here are a few tips that just might help you get out of that rut you’re in.
1) Walk Away
Not quit photography, just walk away and totally stop taking photographs for a few days. If you’re passionate about photography, the urge to start again will come back to you.

2) Work on your backend
What I mean by “backend” is the following. Work on items that are photography related, such as taking the time to update any software that you use on or PC or Mac for photography. During my rut I spent a day dedicated to updating my Canon camera’s software. Programs that I have currently on my Mac for my Canon camera are EOS Utility, Digital Photo Professional, and Image Browser. Programs usually have automatic update setting. But at times you have to manually check for updates either via the active program or via the camera’s manufacture’s website. As well I use Aperture for Mac and I had discovered at the time that it was due for a software update as well. Once I updated all my software I had discovered that the various programs worked better that before and made things a lot easier for me when processing photos. There are more programs that I use; I’m just listing the ones that needed an update during my rut.

3) Rethink you’re plans and goals
I had to revamp my photography goals and projects; the plans I had originally were ok. But could have been better, so after some thought and going over my current situation I had reprioritized what I wanted to do and get done. Some items got pushed back from my original timeline. And that is totally fine for it gave me more flexibility and room to work with. Better to push a project back than to totally abandon it I say. A perfect example of this is the following. One project that I was working on was that I was looking into getting a new external hard drive for my Macs backup system that I had originally set up. It’s a robust system that involves three (yes… three) external hard drives. One main/master back up drive and the other two drives are mirror copies of the back up drive. Basically it’s a back up for the main/master backup drive. If the Master back up drive fails, I have the other two drives that would take over in the process. In layman’s terms… No data or photo lost. Recently one of the back up drives had failed and crashed. Mind you of course the other two are still working. And took over the role of the failed drive. So my photo files and my entire Mac’s files and settings are still currently safe. I manage over 10,694 photos, and over 80 documents. Call me paranoid about my back up set up, but this current failure that I had did prove my point that it could happen. I was going to get a replacement drive a few days after the failure happened. But after some thought, I thought it would be best just to wait a few more weeks to get it. After all the other two drives are doing well, so no major rush on replacing the failed drive. Matter of fact I plan on getting two drives for a total of four. One main back up drive and three mirror drives will be my upgraded back up system.

4) Make the time to work on unfinished photography projects:
An example of this is the following: Some time back about over a month ago. I purchased a used Canon EF 80-200 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, at a very low price. I cleaned it up and thought to plan on testing it in the next couple of days after I purchased it. Well guess what? I never got around to testing the lens. It was basically never tested because I never took the time to do so. So I did exactly just that, make the time to test out that lens. No agenda, no particular item to photograph. Just go outside take a walk or a bus ride to any random location such as a park and just start shooting. To my pleasant surprise the lens works quite well and I did manage to capture some good photos in the process.

5) Use Instagram:
In a recent blog post that I had written. I said. “When I post photos to Instagram. It’s usually a preview of an actual photo that I’m about to take. I gauge how well a photo is going to be responded to or “liked” by the amount of people that comment or like the Instagram photo. The responses to my Instagram posts are always a gauge of how well I did with my personal styling in selecting the subject that I choose to photograph.” This still holds true and as well the feedback that you get from liked photos does in a way tell you how good your photography idea was when you photographed the subject and posted it to Instagram.

 
If you would like more inspiration and tips feel free to check out Luis Castro’s original blog post HERE. 
 

Luis Castro owns and operates JPeg Image Photography out of New York City. He specializes in portrait, fine art and event photography.  To see more of his work you can check out his webiste JPeg Image Photography, his Flickr page or his Instagram handle is  @JPEGIMAGEPHOTOGRAPHY.