Creative block

Learning goal

You will be able to recognize the moments when the desire to take photos disappears in the middle of a project or after a long period of shooting, and try ways out of them. You will tell apart the common causes behind a block: repetition born of looking at the same place with the same eye, the pressure that every frame must be good, tiredness and comparison with other people's work. You will apply constraint exercises that deliberately reduce the options, working with a single prime lens, a single color, a single street or a single hour of light, and limiting the number of frames to be used in a shoot. You will tell when a break is an escape and when it is deliberate rest. While working with constraints, you will take care not to reduce a person, especially their skin, to a color or shape object to be hunted.

The question

It is the ninth week of the bakery project. Your friend walks through the bakery door at five in the morning, raises the camera and sees the usual image in the viewfinder: the oven's orange mouth, the long peel, the loaves being lined up on the shelves. They press the shutter; the frame is technically flawless, but it can't be told apart from the previous week's, or the one before that. Nothing stirs inside it. The next morning, when the alarm goes off, they don't get out of bed. Nor the morning after.

Still, they can't help thinking about the bakery. They still wonder how the baker smells the bread, how the elderly neighbor folds their cloth. The curiosity is there, but the desire to turn it into photos has gone. Why does inspiration disappear, and how does it come back? Is there a way to escape looking at the same place with the same eye?

Context

In the previous lesson we tied the project to an accessible subject, a question and a schedule (Lesson 23.4). In long projects, curiosity fading after a while and shoots turning into routine is a common experience. It isn't a lack of talent or proof that the project was chosen wrongly; it is a natural stage of looking at the same subject for a long time.

In the prime or zoom lesson you got to know the prime lens, which works at a single focal length (Lesson 12.3). This limitation, which we discussed in that lesson as a technical choice, will serve another purpose in this lesson: refreshing the eye by reducing the options. The ways out of a block are often not more equipment, a more distant subject or more freedom, but on the contrary, fewer options.

Simple explanation

Where does a block come from?

Creative block is the desire to shoot or the ability to see something new disappearing for a while, even while a photographer's interest in their subject continues. A block doesn't arise from a single cause, and knowing the cause makes it easier to choose the way out. Its signs, too, are often familiar: finding excuses to leave the camera at home, putting off opening the frames after a shoot, recalling a previously shot frame when looking through the viewfinder. Noticing these signs early makes it possible to take measures before the block is allowed to end the project.

The repetition trap is looking at the same subject from the same angle, at the same hour, with the same lens, over time keeping the eye from seeing something new. Entering the bakery through the same door every morning and shooting from the same corner allows deepening in the first weeks; but past a certain point, the eye stops seeing and starts recognizing. The image in the viewfinder is no longer a discovery but a confirmation of something known.

The pressure of expectation feeds a block too. As the project progresses, the feeling that every frame must be better than the last grows; the frame is judged before the shutter is pressed, and this judgment stops the hand. Tiredness, the weeks-long build-up of getting up at four in the morning, drains both body and attention. Constant comparison with other people's work, on the other hand, can make your own eye feel worthless. Each of these causes needs a different response: repetition eases with a new constraint, the pressure of expectation with play, tiredness with rest, and comparison with not looking at other people's work for a while.

Why does constraint work?

A constraint exercise is work in which the options in a shoot are deliberately reduced and this limit, by pushing the eye, makes it possible to find new frames. Unlimited options often end in choosing the easiest and most familiar. A limit, on the other hand, keeps the hand from the familiar path and pushes the eye to look for something else.

Working with a single prime lens is its best-known example. Going to the bakery with only a close-up lens makes the wide bakery frame impossible and forces you to get close to the flour dust, the dough under the baker's nails, the cracks in a loaf's crust. Working with a single color, for example looking all morning only for frames that contain something blue, shows you a blue bucket, a blue apron, blue dawn light seeping through the window that you had never noticed in the bakery. Working in a single street or a single square meter, shooting for an hour without ever leaving the bakery door, brings forward the people coming and going, the changing light and details that had always stayed in the background. Shooting only at a single hour of light, for example only at daybreak, does the same job.

When choosing a constraint, you shouldn't reduce a person to a color or shape object. In a single-color exercise, seeing a person's skin as a color to be hunted, putting the baker's dark skin on the same list as the loaves and crates while looking all morning only for brown things, turns them into an object. The color hunt is done in objects, light, clothing and space; people can appear in these frames, but skin isn't sought as a color sample.

What are a frame budget and a break for?

A frame budget is limiting in advance the number of frames that can be used in a shoot. The decision to shoot only twelve frames all morning turns every frame into a decision. Thinking before pressing the shutter, adjusting the framing, waiting for the right moment become obligatory. This limit is the exact opposite of shooting hundreds of similar frames and then getting lost among them; it brings back to the digital camera the attention that the limited number of frames on a roll gave film cameras. At the end of a twelve-frame morning you remember every frame, because you chose each one.

A deliberate break is stepping away from the project for a set period, with a return date, at a moment of block. A break isn't an escape; its difference from an open-ended giving up is that the return is decided in advance. Not going to the bakery for a week, putting the camera down and just walking, dealing with something in another field, rests the eye. When you come back, the bakery looks a little strange again, and this strangeness is the condition for starting to see again. The way to tell when a break turns into an escape is simple: if, when the return date comes, you don't want to go and find other excuses instead, the break is an escape and it is time to try a constraint exercise.

Another way is to share the eye with someone else for a while. Handing the camera to the baker or the apprentice for a morning shows how they see the bakery through their own eyes. If these frames are to enter the project, who shot them is stated and their use is discussed with them; a shared production turns consent into a shared decision too.

Visual evidence

After a week-long deliberate break, you go back to the bakery with only a close-up lens and a budget of twelve frames. The wide bakery frame can't be shot; instead you see the flour dust drifting in the light coming from the oven's mouth, the cracks in the loaves' crusts, the trace of dough in the baker's palm. Nine of the twelve frames resemble none of the frames you shot in nine weeks.

The next morning, a single-color exercise: only blue. In the bakery you find a blue water bucket you had never noticed before, the apprentice's blue apron, and a window where the blue of dawn meets the orange mouth of the oven. The baker themselves appears in some of the frames, but the color hunt is not in their skin but in the apron, the bucket and the light. The morning after, you hand the camera to the baker; one of the frames they shoot shows, from behind the counter, the customers' faces as they reach for bread: a place you could never stand.

Common mistakes

Summary

Creative block is the desire to shoot disappearing even while curiosity continues; telling apart causes such as the repetition trap, the pressure of expectation, tiredness and comparison makes it possible to choose the right way out. Constraint exercises that reduce the lens, color, place or hour of light to one, and a frame budget, refresh the eye by reducing the options, and a deliberate break with a return date and sharing the eye with the subject themselves also make it possible to see again. While working with constraints, a person, especially their skin, isn't reduced to a color or shape object to be hunted.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will go back with constraints to a subject on which you have become blocked or fallen into routine.

1. Write the cause of your block: repetition, pressure of expectation, tiredness or comparison; if more than one, rank them.
2. Go to the same subject with only a prime lens or a single focal length and a budget of twelve frames; count how many frames came out that don't resemble the frames you shot before.
3. On another day, shoot looking for only one color, or without ever leaving one square meter; do the color hunt in objects, light and clothing.
4. Give your camera for one shoot to someone inside the subject, or share your eye with them; discuss with them how you will use their frames. If needed, plan a break with a return date.

Check yourself

• Were you able to name the cause of your block and choose a suitable way out?
• Did frames come out of the constraint exercise that don't resemble the ones you shot before?
• In the color or shape hunt, did you check that you didn't see a person or their skin as an object?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. Entering the same bakery through the same door for nine weeks and shooting from the same corner keeps the eye from seeing something new. What is this?

• A) Pressure of expectation
• B) Frame budget
• C) Repetition trap
• D) Deliberate break

2. Why does working with a single prime lens help with a block?

• A) By reducing the options it moves the eye away from the familiar frame and pushes it to look for new things
• B) Because it gives sharper frames
• C) Because it needs less light
• D) Because it is lighter

3. What separates a break from an escape?

• A) The length of the break
• B) The return having been decided in advance
• C) The camera being carried along
• D) Other photos being shot during the break

4. All morning, only brown things are being looked for. Which approach is correct?

• A) Adding the baker's dark skin to the color list too
• B) Shooting only people
• C) Dropping the exercise completely
• D) Doing the color hunt in objects, light and clothing; not seeking skin as a color sample

Answers

1. C — The same angle, hour and lens lead the eye to stop seeing and start recognizing.
2. A — The limit keeps the hand from the familiar path and pushes the eye to look for other frames.
3. B — A break without a return date can turn into a quiet giving up.
4. D — Seeking a person's skin like a color sample reduces them to an object.

Summary card

• Name the cause of the block: repetition, pressure, tiredness, comparison.
• Reduce the options: one lens, one color, one street, one hour of light.
• Turn every frame into a decision with a frame budget.
• Take the break with a return date.
• Don't hunt a person, their skin, like a color or shape object.

Bridge to the next lesson

The new bakery frames shot with constraints were projected on the screen at the club meeting. One member just said "boring" and moved on; your friend didn't know what to do. Another member, on the other hand, first said one by one what they liked in two frames, then pointed out in a single frame how the light of the oven's mouth swallowed the faces and made a suggestion. Your friend had learned nothing from the first comment, and from the second they at once planned the next morning. How do you critique a photo? The next lesson tells about receiving and giving critique, and a method built on two praises and one suggestion.