Creative Season

Once upon a time, I was an assignment photographer for the biggest photo agency in the world, and I loved it.

It was challenging. It forced me to grow and learn and improvise. The work felt important to me and I loved delivering high-quality service and imagery to my clients. My work and skill were valued and appreciated. I was fulfilled.

I was also broke.

The money was inconsistent and, for that reason, I took a teaching job (my occupation prior to photography) to fill in the gaps between my speckled photo opportunities.

The problem with this approach was that it interfered with my availability and I found it increasingly hard to say yes to photography opportunities. As a result, the phone stopped ringing.

Had I known at the time that taking that day job would have been the lead domino in my photography career dying off I probably wouldn’t have taken it.

Fast forward to today, a decade after making that decision to go back to the classroom, and I am once again thinking about how else I could do the work I did back then.

In many ways this blog is an attempt to get some of that fire back. To be able to go places that I wouldn’t normally be able to go. To push the boundaries of my abilities. To grow again.

I’m not sure if I am going to continue writing though. Well, I think I’ll always write, but I’m not sure that I will continue to do so in this manner where I am trying to develop stories that have a deliverable message.

I guess my initial idea for my blog was to write so that I could continue to do these other creative things focused around photography and music. However, the blog has evolved into mostly writing and it has become kind of a grind. There hasn’t been a whole lot of photography or music going on lately, just long hours in front of a computer screen typing, trying to turn word soup into something tangible and relevant.

I don’t feel like I’m done with writing, but it does feel like I’d rather focus on these other pursuits of music and photography, while augmenting them with my writing, rather than making the writing itself the main focus.

I’m not sure that I set out to be a writer as much as I set out to be someone who writes about things I find interesting. Maybe they are the same thing, but it feels like I need to make the distinction, at least for myself.

Now that I’m back at school, just trying to write this one article has been a significant challenge.

Maybe this is the lesson though, that creativity happens in seasons. It certainly has in my life. Maybe it’s all part of a single pursuit, but the pursuit itself must happen in stages. There are no perfectly straight lines on the path.

I suppose I am writing this article while trying to parse out what’s next. 

Do I continue to try and brute force my way through while dealing with the mentally draining day job that I have, which saps my creativity and makes it really hard to write?

Or, should I let the seasons change, both figuratively and literally, allowing whatever the next creative endeavor is into my life?

Either way, I think that it is important to have a clearly defined goal, which I did (30 articles in July and August), but now that I have met this goal I can’t help but wonder whether or not I want to continue on this path.

I just want to make things that people can feel. Right now, to me, it feels like music and photography are the way forward in that pursuit.

Maybe, as you’re reading this, you are facing a similar challenge in trying to figure out what’s next. I encourage you to give yourself the same freedom. 

I hope you allow yourself to evolve along your path and to not stick to something that doesn’t quite feel right. Don’t give up because it’s hard. This isn’t about quitting, it’s about adapting.

What I am trying to convey is that sometimes on our journeys through our craft we have to make adjustments. Some large and some small.

Adjust, re-aim, and fire again. Notice what is working and what is not. Then, repeat.

Either way, we have to work on something if we expect to get to where we want to be.

Keep creating. Keep learning. Keep adjusting. 

Move forward.