I’m pretty sure every artist goes through a slump or something similar to writer’s block.  I know I have a time or two.  I know how to take a photograph.  I know exposure.  I know composition.  I know that I have taken some good photographs, but for whatever reason, I’ve gotten stuck.  Frankly, my photographs sucked.  I get back home and look at them and wondered, “What in the heck was I looking at when I shot this?”

I’ve talked to a few people who have gone through something like this, and I started to recognize some things they all had in common:  withdrawal.  Instead of facing their block head on, they backed down and didn’t get back on the horse.  They waited for something to happen.  In most cases, it would turn around eventually.  It probably didn’t happen all at once, and to a certain extent, I’ve seen some people with insane photographic talent essentially give up the camera after a slump and haven’t really returned.  I have to say that I’ve been there, but I also got out of it, and I couldn’t be more motivated about photography.

You can find a lot written about breaking out of a slump or a block.  I suppose some of it is pretty good advice, but I’m going to share what I feel has a higher chance of helping than anything else: friends.

Yes, friends.  In this case, I mean friends with cameras, friends taking photographs, friends using Photoshop, and friends talking about photography.  Immerse yourself in your friends who are also into photography.  If you don’t have friends who are into photography, join a forum online, or a Facebook group or something similar to that.  Heck, you can e-mail me and I’ll talk photography as much as you want!  Don’t worry about the photographs you are producing.  Let it go.  See what your friends are doing.  Ask them about their photographic outings, and most important of all meet up with them in person and go out to take some new pictures.

Get out there!  Don’t worry about what you’ll be bringing home.  I know that’s tough because photographers fret over their comps, they pre-visualize, visualize and post-visualize the shot they want, they obsess over the lighting, heck they fantasize about the lighting.  STOP IT!  Yes, I’m yelling.  Just stop it.  No expectations.  Hit the trail with your friend or friends, camera and tripod in hand.  You don’t even need to take a photograph, in fact, try not to.  Our tendency is to try to force a shot when we are in a slump, or take to many shots, or too few, or to concentrate too much.  I’m going to yell again, STOP IT!  Let yourself be truly inspired before you unfold the tripod and mount your camera.

I can’t place enough value on that of friends.  I hit a slump not that long ago.  I stopped reading about photography (you can never really read enough or learn enough).  I wasn’t involved in my favorite forum online either.  I hated everything I tried to do creatively.   In some ways, I stopped having fun trying to make a good photograph.

I had been out in the past with quite a few different photographers, but when the slump started, I stopped getting out there.  I withdrew, and I knew it was wrong.  Then I met a new friend.  He is a successful photographer and in many ways embodied what I’d like to do someday with my knowledge and craft.  I know we’ve spend more hours talking about photograph and non-photography topics than actually taking photographs.  I was deep in my slump.  He invited me out to do some photography.  I went, we drove around, B.S.’ed and took some shots.  The couple times we went looking for subjects, I struggled and really wanted to make a good photograph, but it just didn’t happen.  When I got home, I lost the focus of the more important aspect of the trips we took: the friendship.  Not that I had forgotten I had a great friend, but I let the photography over-shadow it, and that’s when I realized I needed to change my focus, and not necessarily my camera.

My friend teaches photographic workshops all over the west.  He works hard and is on the road most of the year away from his wife.  He helps others more than he spends taking photographs for himself.  With that in mind, I figured out that I needed to stop worrying about what I was going to accomplish when I went out.  When I was younger and went out with my friends to do some fishing, it didn’t really matter if we came home without a fish, we always had a great time being outdoors, talking, relaxing, etc.  The same should apply to photography.

So, now my focus was on enjoying friendships.  I started contacting others who I hadn’t talked to in awhile and set up places to go.  Sometimes, the meetings weren’t photographic, we just got together for coffee and talked about photography or whatever suited us.  Soon, and fairly quickly, my inspiration started to return.  I could feel the motivation and the desire to be creative building back up.

The other thing I did, and I highly recommend, is borrowing some books from the library.  I immersed myself in everything photographic, from guide books, beginner books, advanced techniques, and coffee table books.

Slumps happen to everyone, but you can take steps to break out of them.  Don’t let your camera gather dust, pick it up, call some friends, get out there!