I shot this using Kodak 400UC in an Olympus OM-1 someone gave me. (Camera or lens contributions are always welcome, by the way.) You might be interested to know that the white dot you see framed in the upper part of the gate is a tennis ball the boys were bouncing against the wall.
The meter doesn't work in this camera, so I based the exposure on memory. A local lab scanned the film as part of its normal processing package. I did the black & white conversion in Photoshop. Since I normally shoot and print color with a DSLR, the way most advanced amateurs do these days, this little experiment definitely qualifies as a rut-buster.
If you find yourself shooting the same sort of thing over and over again, doing it the same way every time, and producing photos you aren't particularly delighted with, you could be in a creative rut. You need a splash of cold water, a breath of fresh air, a new perspective. You need a rut-buster. Here, in no particular order, are a few ideas for how to change your game and come up with something new. There's no need to try them all at once, but feel free to combine a few.
Shoot with a different camera. If you normally shoot digital, try film again. If you normally shoot film, try digital, or a different film format, or a rangefinder, or a twin-lens reflex. Because a different camera forces you to do things differently it can cause you to see things differently.
Shoot with a different lens. You zoomers might want to see what the fuss about fixed focal length lenses is all about. You prime lens snobs might try renting or borrowing a zoom for a few days. But don't just try something that's in the focal length range you always use. Go for something a lot wider or longer. It will seem weird at first, maybe even uncomfortable. That's good. Stick with it for at least a hundred shots and you'll be surprised at what you come up with.
Set limits. Limits eliminate distracting options and by doing so they help focus the mind. One of the most classic limits is to shoot in black and white rather than color. Many digital cameras these days have a B&W mode that produces raw files with a B&W display and JPEGs. If you'd prefer to shoot color, then limit your palette to two or three colors. Or limit yourself to one neighborhood, one block, one building, or even one room inside that building. Whatever limit you set, good faith effort can yield amazing results.
Emulate a style you admire. Emulate is a nice way of say "copy" or "imitate." That's okay: Even copying someone who's very good at what they do is not easy. Even if you don't succeed, you can learn a lot by trying. And don't worry about being seen as a copy-cat. Even the masters were influenced by other masters, yet in the end they could not escape being themselves and neither can you.
I could probably come up with several more, but I think you get the idea. Shake things up. Get out of your comfort zone. Take risks. After all, if you really hate the results it costs you nothing to delete them later. And if anyone reading this has any rut-busting suggestions to share with the rest of us, please feel free. We're all friends here, right?
Every art student in the world spends a fair amount of time trying to copy old masters, to understand their techniques and to understand how they worked. We really should be doing a lot more copying ourselves, whether stuck in a rut or not.
Pick a picture - any picture - from, say Cartier-Bresson. Try to shoot "the same" picture. Try several approaches, and find out what elements in the original really are essential to _that_ picture and which are incidental. It may even be that not a single visible thing in the picture is important, but just the overall shape of light and dark, and the mood.
In the end you'll have a lot of lousy pictures, a much better understanding of the original, and probably a dozen new ideas for you to work on.
Posted by: Janne | May 11, 2009 at 11:59 PM
I personally find the "set limits" recommendation to be very effective.
By choosing a theme (say, for example, "doors and windows"), you not only know where to look (which makes it simpler than looking *everywhere*), but you also end up with a coherent body of work.
If you set very restrictive limits, like "interior of building X", it also forces you to look harder, take your time, use a much more contemplative approach, work on perfecting your composition, etc. It's almost certain you'll come up with something interesting where you would never have imagined there was--especially if you walk through that building everyday without ever having taken the time to *look*.
The limit can also be *time*. Imagine you're working on an assignment for a client, and you have to come up with a good image in a given amount of time, say two hours. The added pressure might not work for some, but for others, it will give them that little extra push and force them to produce something.
You have more chances of producing interesting images if you go out and shoot images than if you just think about images you'd like to make or think you can.
Posted by: Charles Lanteigne | May 12, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Speaking of shooting with a different lens, here's something I've used to get out of a rut: http://tinyurl.com/qxesa2
Gordon, that's a cracking shot you took. The kids are standing in exactly the right places (as is the tennis ball). You couldn't have staged this any better :-)
Posted by: Miserere | May 12, 2009 at 11:34 AM
"You couldn't have staged this any better"
I couldn't have staged it at all. Lucky for me I didn't have to.
Posted by: Gordon Lewis | May 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM
The more I look at this, the more I like and appreciate it.
It is "a moment in time" (as you write about in today's post), but everything about that moment clicked. Thanks for posting it.
Posted by: Lesley | May 18, 2009 at 08:26 AM