How to get out of a photography slump

A photography slump is odd because nothing is really wrong. You know how to use the camera and you can still get decent shots, you just don't much want to.

10 August 20267 minute read

Misty woodland 👀 On a hike through Yosemite National Park my buddy and I were meant to get views across the entire valley. However with the mist we instead got lost and nearly didn’t make it back before dark😅😅 This was one of the shots taken on the way up, with a fresh new edit to try and bring out more of the atmosphere.

After a few weeks the guilt kicks in, and that makes picking the camera up even less appealing. Six weeks on there's dust on the lens cap and you're watching a video about a lens you can't afford. The usual advice is to just get out and shoot, which is about as useful as being told to just go for a run. It's getting out of the door that's hard.

The quickest way out of a photography slump

Make the next session smaller than feels worth doing. One lens, one subject, twenty minutes, ten shots, somewhere you already know the way to. A slump is usually less about losing interest in photography and more about not having a clear next thing to do. Give the session one small job and the interest tends to turn up once you're out, so don't wait for it before you go.

Don't buy your way out of it

A new lens does make photography feel fresh for a fortnight. But nothing changed apart from having a reason to go and try something, so the lens was never really the problem. An expensive trip and an hour at eleven at night scrolling through everyone else's best shots work the same way. Sometimes they help, but more often you end up back where you started, and the trip comes with a deposit.

Make the task smaller

Don't go out to take good shots. That's a standard rather than a task, and it's the last thing you want to face right now. Go out for twenty minutes. Take ten shots, use one lens, and shoot one colour or one street. A limit like that turns the afternoon into a small puzzle, and a puzzle is much easier to start than an open-ended ambition.

Shoot something boring

Your kitchen, the car park, the bus stop, a road you walk every week without looking at. A boring subject takes away the help an impressive location gives you, so you have to find the shot yourself. That's the skill you were worried you'd lost, and you'll find it's still there.

A bare, thorny branch against an orange sunset sky, with a person and a dog silhouetted on the hill behind. — Alistair's “Another take on walking the dog”, at 28mm, 1/200s, f/10 and ISO 1600 for the Landscape Golden Hour Mission. The walk you do every day counts as a shoot (the dog may not agree).

Go somewhere familiar

Somewhere you know well makes you work harder, as you got bored of the obvious views years ago. What's left are the shots you only find by going back again and again, and that's where more personal work starts to show up. A local patch you keep going back to for five years will usually give you better shots than five new locations.

Autumn woodland in mid Wales, with a small waterfall, a footbridge and red and orange leaves covering the ground — Autumn woodland in mid Wales, for the Atmospheric Woodland Mission. A wood changes week to week in autumn, so it rewards going back.

Change one thing you never change

Leave the usual lens at home, shoot black and white, use a shutter speed slow enough to turn moving water into a blur, or set yourself a hard limit of ten shots. It doesn't matter much which one. Anything that breaks an automatic choice makes you think about it, and that changes what you notice. What you notice matters far more than the gear.

A black and white shot down a narrow rock tunnel in the Ypres caves, lit by bare bulbs — Inside the Ypres caves in black and white, on a phone at 1/33 of a second and ISO 931. If you always shoot colour, a week of black and white makes you look at light and shape instead.

Edit something old

You don't have to be outside to be doing photography, and on a wet evening this is the one most likely to happen. Open a folder from two years ago, pick five files you ignored at the time, edit them the way you would now, and put the old version next to the new one. You'll probably be surprised how far your editing has come, and there's usually one in there you walked straight past that's better than you remember.

Print one shot

A file on a hard drive is easy to forget. A print sits on the wall for anyone walking past, and it doesn't need to be the best thing you've ever taken. Get one printed at a decent size and hang it somewhere you pass every day.

Go with somebody

This is probably the most effective thing on the page, and the one people skip as it involves asking. If you've told another photographer you'll meet them at eight, you'll turn up. Once you're there, watching someone else stop at something you walked straight past gets your own attention going again. The debate in the car on the way home helps too!

The Milky Way over a long stone bridge with arches, reflected in a river at night. — Craig hadn't done much night photography, so went out with a friend who gave some pointers. The foreground is a single 30s exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, and the sky is 25 shots stacked.

Let somebody else choose the brief

Often the hardest part of a rut is deciding what to shoot, so hand that decision to someone else. Take a Mission, a workshop brief, a club theme or an idea a friend has already had, ideally one you wouldn't normally pick. It gets you somewhere new without having to come up with a whole project first.

What these have in common

Every one of them swaps an open-ended ambition for a small task you can finish today.

When it's more than a slump

Photography drops down the list when work gets busy or a child arrives. If that's what happened, put the camera somewhere you'll see it and pick it back up when there's room. If you haven't enjoyed it for a long stretch, ask yourself whether you miss photography or miss being into photography. One of those answers saves you a fortune on lenses.

Make the next thing tiny

Twenty minutes, one lens, one brief, one walk. You don't need to feel inspired before you leave the house, and it's far more likely to turn up on the way back than on the way out. The easiest start is a brief somebody else has already written, as it takes away the last decision between you and the door. That's what a Mission is for.

Shoot itOpen

Curves

One small idea for a twenty-minute walk, in any genre.

Or pick one from every open mission. If it turns out to be a plateau rather than a slump (you're shooting plenty but none of it is moving on), deliberate practice is the article you want. And if the real problem is that everywhere you put your work up has turned into a numbers game, there are places built differently.