Two important activities have been missing in my life lately – walking and photography.

The lack of walking is mainly because of really bad weather and that I’ve been lazy and slipped out of having a proper routine other than the gym (more about that in my next Sunday post). With the photography it’s more complicated.

Some month ago I was finally gaining some confidence with photography and was inspired to dig into some new projects, but recently I’ve completely fallen into a deep hole of creativity slump. My fingers are itching to take more photos but my brain isn’t on board, AT ALL.

Winter is always my low season with photography. This year I attempted an indoor project, “everyday objects”, to train my photographic eye and keep the photos flowing even during the dull months. But I couldn’t find any interesting subjects, and got stuck.

I think I know the reason and it’s about more than being busy or not having the nice light – I’ve fallen into the perfectionism trap again. It’s not really that old self-doubt either, it’s more like… overthinking.

Photo competitions, photo critique and how it kills my creativity

Recently I made the mistake of joining a competition in my camera club. I don’t really agree with photo competitions but sometimes I join these to make myself photograph something different, engage in club activities and to learn something new. The actual creating of the photos is fine because it’s usually a nice challenge, but I should stay away from the meeting where the judging/critique happens.

I want to enjoy a photograph for what it is and hear about the story behind the image. Listening to someone pick photos apart in every detail annoys me to bits these days and it can completely kill my creativity and joy with photography. And I’ve realised that listening to too much photo critique – no matter how much of a learning opportunity it can be – only feeds my own extreme inner critic and imaginary “shoulds” and “have-tos”. It makes me overthink every time I take a photo.

And not only that – it sort of rewires my brain so that when I see a photograph, my brain starts critiquing it instead of seeing the beauty in it.

I had exactly this kind of creativity crisis after I had been competition admin in the camera club for some year, and on the top of that I attended the online Lightroom summit, watching people edit already stunning images because they were apparently “not good enough”. After that I was lost. I remember walking down the hill and nature was at its very best in the end of May, with trees in bloom and the sun warming my face, trying to teach myself to enjoy photography again and that I only need to please myself.

Relearning how to look at photography

When I started using Substack more, in terms of reading other people’s posts and notes, I found so many interesting photographers there writing about the more artsy side of photography and sharing the thought process behind their photos. I slowly learned to move away from the critique and instead just enjoy other people’s photos for what they are with how they were created and the story behind them. It made me see photography differently, including my own.

So it really annoyed me when one single critique night immediately put me back in the critique/analysis mode. If you want to tell me how important feedback and critique is for learning, I’ll say this – photography is about more than doing it “correctly”.

I certainly have skills I need to improve, but for now I don’t need more photo tips (unless I search for something specific) and I definitely don’t need to hear more photo critique. What I need is practice – to spend time with my camera and explore different techniques, subjects and compositions, and I need to do so on my own terms.

Some time ago I came across a wonderful video on YouTube where the message was “consume less, create more”. That really resonated with me, but then I got busy with work and other things. Then this week I read this blog post by Robin Wong and was reminded of the importance of spending time with the camera. And I need to shoot a LOT more than I’ve been doing recently.

I’ve noticed that when I keep taking photos consistently, that nagging voice of self-criticism is silenced because I’m too busy enjoying photography. And when I listen less to other people’s opinions, I get more productive.

Last summer I decided to upgrade from Micro four thirds to full-frame, and bought my new favourite camera, a mirrorless full-frame camera, Sony a7III. I was tempted to get a prime lens (I only used prime lenses the last few years with my Olympus) for the smaller size but was recommended a zoom lens for the convenience, and since it was on discount and also had a nice lowest aperture of f2.8 at whatever focal length, I decided to give it a try.

Oh, how I love this camera! And all the fun times I’ve had with it! Before my foot injury last autumn, I went for regular long walks with my camera, in town and on the country roads and I took photos of everything. This is the mood I need to get back to!

These walks were important for more than photography. I had a lot of inner stress last year and found that going for a good walk helped me settle down and clarify my thoughts. Combine that with the therapeutic effect of photography and you have a perfect activity for wellbeing. Robin Wong calls it shutter therapy which is a lovely way to express it.

We’ve had what felt like the longest and most dreary winter since we moved to Ireland, and I haven’t been out much or even felt it was doable because of weather, but now spring is here, and new photo walks will happen.

I’ll get back on track.

This was originally meant to be a post about the soothing powers of photo walks, but my brain wanted it differently. How do you feel about photo competitions? How do you battle creativity slumps?