Art question...stuck in a rut?

So anyway, I really like photography. I wouldn't even call myself an "artist", because nearly all my stuff is just ****. But the actual FEELING of getting out there and creating something, even if that something turns out to eventually be a load of crap, is just totally exhilarating.

But lately, the spark has just been gone.

It's like, it's no longer a matter of all my stuff just being crap. Before, all my stuff was crap, but at least when I was out in the field I had IDEAS. Now it's like the ideas are gone. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut, I'm out of ideas, and the motivation to just plain try stuff seems tro have died.

So...has anyone else ever gotten stuck in a rut? When you feel like you're stagnating, but can't think of anything to do, WHAT DO YOU DO?

Are there any writers here who have ever gotten "writer's block"? How do you beat that? How do you rekindle the old spark, get the old noggin buzzing again with fresh new ideas?

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

Yeah...writing is just scribbling letters, and painting is just slapping colors onto stuff, and playing drums is just banging on a bunch of loud ****.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

MrGeezer

Yeah...writing is just scribbling letters, and painting is just slapping colors onto stuff, and playing drums is just banging on a bunch of loud ****.

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

try taking you camera with you and going on a road trip. you can also try photoshopping them.

would you mind posting some of your pictures?

Usually I'll just force myself to do at least something, no matter how bad it will turn out because at least its something.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LZ71

Are there any writers here who have ever gotten "writer's block"? How do you beat that? How do you rekindle the old spark, get the old noggin buzzing again with fresh new ideas?

MrGeezer

I read or watch a lot of stuff until something clicks. Happened right after I finished reading Dune and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

Yeah...writing is just scribbling letters, and painting is just slapping colors onto stuff, and playing drums is just banging on a bunch of loud ****.

Drawing/painting could arguably be considered easy.

The landscape painter who wants to paint mountains doesn't have to be hindered by reality. The portrait painter can totally paint out their subject's leprosy.

If anything, it could be argued that the painter/drawer has it EASY, because they don't have things such as THE REAL WORLD getting in the way of their artistic vision.

But aside from that, you're probably just referring to CRAFT, which is basically just being proficient at technical details. And really, assembly line machinists know CRAFT. That's mostly just technique. The thing about ART is that it takes a creative spark, a new way of looking at things, a genuine passion and unique way of telling a story. If you think that all drums are just mindless banging, you've never heard a good drummer. If you think that all paintings are just slapping colors onto canvas, then you've never seen a good painting. If you think that all photography is just pointing at stuff and pushing a button, then you've never seen a good photograph. And if you think that all writing is just scribbling down a bunch of words, then you've never read a good novel.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Yeah...writing is just scribbling letters, and painting is just slapping colors onto stuff, and playing drums is just banging on a bunch of loud ****.

MrGeezer

Drawing/painting could arguably be considered easy.

The landscape painter who wants to paint mountains doesn't have to be hindered by reality. The portrait painter can totally paint out their subject's leprosy.

If anything, it could be argued that the painter/drawer has it EASY, because they don't have things such as THE REAL WORLD getting in the way of their artistic vision.

But aside from that, you're probably just referring to CRAFT, which is basically just being proficient at technical details. And really, assembly line machinists know CRAFT. That's mostly just technique. The thing about ART is that it takes a creative spark, a new way of looking at things, a genuine passion and unique way of telling a story. If you think that all drums are just mindless banging, you've never heard a good drummer. If you think that all paintings are just slapping colors onto canvas, then you've never seen a good painting. If you think that all photography is just pointing at stuff and pushing a button, then you've never seen a good photograph. And if you think that all writing is just scribbling down a bunch of words, then you've never read a good novel.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

drawing/painting takes a lot more skill IMO. self proclaimed myspace photographers are annoying as hell posting their boring ass pics, and putting in an album called "art"

LeGoofyGoober

Drawing/painting could arguably be considered easy.

The landscape painter who wants to paint mountains doesn't have to be hindered by reality. The portrait painter can totally paint out their subject's leprosy.

If anything, it could be argued that the painter/drawer has it EASY, because they don't have things such as THE REAL WORLD getting in the way of their artistic vision.

But aside from that, you're probably just referring to CRAFT, which is basically just being proficient at technical details. And really, assembly line machinists know CRAFT. That's mostly just technique. The thing about ART is that it takes a creative spark, a new way of looking at things, a genuine passion and unique way of telling a story. If you think that all drums are just mindless banging, you've never heard a good drummer. If you think that all paintings are just slapping colors onto canvas, then you've never seen a good painting. If you think that all photography is just pointing at stuff and pushing a button, then you've never seen a good photograph. And if you think that all writing is just scribbling down a bunch of words, then you've never read a good novel.

Usually I'll just force myself to do at least something, no matter how bad it will turn out because at least its something.

vidplayer8

I'm kind of thinking about something like that.

I mean, if all the joy seems to have gone, it's probably because that creative spark is gone. So I'm thinking of a project. Just taking some of the most mundane boring **** I can think of, and trying to make it interesting.

Like, start out with one theme per day. One day it might be condoms, one day it might be toothpicks, one day it might be leaves. But basically just forcing myself to basically go on assignment with a certain theme, and then hopefully not having to think about the theme will allow me to concentrate on approaching that theme from an interesting angle.

I mean, hell. Edward Weston did some goddamn bell peppers. Granted he's more technically skilled than I'll ever be, but still. If someone can turn freaking bell peppers into a work of art, then damnit, I'm just not trying hard enough.

Pull a urinal out of a public toilet and call it Fountain.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Drawing/painting could arguably be considered easy.

The landscape painter who wants to paint mountains doesn't have to be hindered by reality. The portrait painter can totally paint out their subject's leprosy.

If anything, it could be argued that the painter/drawer has it EASY, because they don't have things such as THE REAL WORLD getting in the way of their artistic vision.

But aside from that, you're probably just referring to CRAFT, which is basically just being proficient at technical details. And really, assembly line machinists know CRAFT. That's mostly just technique. The thing about ART is that it takes a creative spark, a new way of looking at things, a genuine passion and unique way of telling a story. If you think that all drums are just mindless banging, you've never heard a good drummer. If you think that all paintings are just slapping colors onto canvas, then you've never seen a good painting. If you think that all photography is just pointing at stuff and pushing a button, then you've never seen a good photograph. And if you think that all writing is just scribbling down a bunch of words, then you've never read a good novel.

LZ71

Usually traveling gives me new perspectives on things. Just the thought of seeing and experiencing something new excites me to no end.

Do something that excite you, or you can try doing something new for a change. Try to break your habit of doing things in a certain way. When I got stuck I found it useful to break the "mold", so to speak, and just be spontaneous. Sometimes things just happen when you least suspect it.

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

I could hand you a $5,000 camera and I doubt that you could take a picture at a professional level to safe your life (with all due respect).

No photographer simply points and shoots. Even just with regards to the camera, you need to utilize the right lens, at an appropriate magnification, from an interesting angle or perspective, with the object of interest/s placed appropriately, with other objects/pieces of architecture/whatever set up with nice clean lines. You need to choose your aperture settings, film speed settings, shutter speed settings, focal length, depth of field, etc, etc, etc.

You need to completely change your camera settings for every single shot. Then you have to worry about how bright it is, what kind of colours are in the atmosphere, what direction the light is coming from. You need to set up your subject appropriately, place light reflectors around the subject, pose it/them, etc, etc, etc.

Photography is an absolute science. The fact that people like you and me couldn't be handed a camera and take national geographic quality photos (even if we know how to adjust the settings of a D-SLR for each shot) is what makes photography an art form imo.

it's technical as hell. sorry, just my opinion man......

LeGoofyGoober

See, that's the thing...you're confusing technique for ART.

Granted, technique is a necessary requirement of most good art, but technique only gets you there halfway.

A hundred equally technically skilled photographers can go out and photograph the same subject, but only a few of those photographs will be GOOD.

A hundred equally technically skilled painters can paint the same vase of flowers, but only a handful of those paintings are going to stand out from the crowd.

Sorry dude, but you're wrong. People are more able to overlook technical flaws if you blow their minds. Technique is certainly important, but it is NOTHING if you don't have a unique artistic vision.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

RearNakedChoke

I could hand you a $5,000 camera and I doubt that you could take a picture at a professional level to safe your life (with all due respect).

No photographer simply points and shoots. Even just with regards to the camera, you need to utilize the right lens, at an appropriate magnification, from an interesting angle or perspective, with the object of interest/s placed appropriately, with other objects/pieces of architecture/whatever set up with nice clean lines. You need to choose your aperture settings, film speed settings, shutter speed settings, focal length, depth of field, etc, etc, etc.

You need to completely change your camera settings for every single shot. Then you have to worry about how bright it is, what kind of colours are in the atmosphere, what direction the light is coming from. You need to set up your subject appropriately, place light reflectors around the subject, pose it/them, etc, etc, etc.

Photography is an absolute science. The fact that people like you and me couldn't be handed a camera and take national geographic quality photos (even if we know how to adjust the settings of a D-SLR for each shot) is what makes photography an art form imo.

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]it's technical as hell. sorry, just my opinion man......

MrGeezer

See, that's the thing...you're confusing technique for ART.

Granted, technique is a necessary requirement of most good art, but technique only gets you there halfway.

A hundred equally technically skilled photographers can go out and photograph the same subject, but only a few of those photographs will be GOOD.

A hundred equally technically skilled painters can paint the same vase of flowers, but only a handful of those paintings are going to stand out from the crowd.

Sorry dude, but you're wrong. People are more able to overlook technical flaws if you blow their minds. Technique is certainly important, but it is NOTHING if you don't have a unique artistic vision.

[QUOTE="RearNakedChoke"]

[QUOTE="LeGoofyGoober"]

i don't really consider photography an art form. i mean, all you do is point at something and take a picture. then again i'm an idiot and extremely close minded

LeGoofyGoober

I could hand you a $5,000 camera and I doubt that you could take a picture at a professional level to safe your life (with all due respect).

No photographer simply points and shoots. Even just with regards to the camera, you need to utilize the right lens, at an appropriate magnification, from an interesting angle or perspective, with the object of interest/s placed appropriately, with other objects/pieces of architecture/whatever set up with nice clean lines. You need to choose your aperture settings, film speed settings, shutter speed settings, focal length, depth of field, etc, etc, etc.

You need to completely change your camera settings for every single shot. Then you have to worry about how bright it is, what kind of colours are in the atmosphere, what direction the light is coming from. You need to set up your subject appropriately, place light reflectors around the subject, pose it/them, etc, etc, etc.

Photography is an absolute science. The fact that people like you and me couldn't be handed a camera and take national geographic quality photos (even if we know how to adjust the settings of a D-SLR for each shot) is what makes photography an art form imo.

try taking you camera with you and going on a road trip. you can also try photoshopping them.

would you mind posting some of your pictures?

Dman0017

Well, as an example, pretty much the best I'm getting is stuff like this...

And like, I'm not even being all that critical of focus and sharpness and image noise and white balance. I'm mainly shooting for just composition and overall aesthetics. And yet I still get stuff like this.

I mean, I can spend a thousand words describing the choices I made when I shot this picture, what I was going for, and the different compositional elements that I was trying to bring together for a desired effect. A LOT of my pictures are like that. I can look at them, see exactly what I was going for even if I took the picture a year ago. Most of the times it doesn't work. On a few rare occasions it does. But even on the rare occasions when everything comes together like I planned it, the result is always just...bland.

I mean, this is pretty enough, I guess, but it isn't ART. Clean it up a bit and it might be suitable for publication in a freaking CALENDAR, but there's just no passion in that thing. It's just bland and lifeless.

And I'm getting worse.

I find when I am stuck in a rut, I need to distance myself away from art for a while. Also, I try to find inspiration in other people's work, but that also has a habit of kicking you in the nuts and saying, "Ha, you'll never be this good". Sometimes, you will find something that will totally kick-start your love for art/photography again, I know this thread helped me a while back.Brutal_Elitegs

When I get stuck in a rut, I think my biggest objection to looking at other people's work is that I'm afraid of ripping off their ideas.

I mean, it's fine to look at other people's ideas when you're full of your own ideas. But if you're out of ideas, and then look at other people's ideas, i think that for me the temptation to simply steal their ideas would just be too great.

[QUOTE="Brutal_Elitegs"]I find when I am stuck in a rut, I need to distance myself away from art for a while. Also, I try to find inspiration in other people's work, but that also has a habit of kicking you in the nuts and saying, "Ha, you'll never be this good". Sometimes, you will find something that will totally kick-start your love for art/photography again, I know this thread helped me a while back.MrGeezer

When I get stuck in a rut, I think my biggest objection to looking at other people's work is that I'm afraid of ripping off their ideas.

I mean, it's fine to look at other people's ideas when you're full of your own ideas. But if you're out of ideas, and then look at other people's ideas, i think that for me the temptation to simply steal their ideas would just be too great.

Study other peoples' work that is different from your own. If something appeals to you, try to capture it yourself, and improve upon it. Also, taking a good, critical look at WHY you think your art is inadequate and then striving to eliminate the inadequacies can renew the spark, though I often find that this sort of motivation isn't provided so much by you as it is by exposure to someone who does something you like much better than you do.

Every time I've been to a first-rate piano recital I'm inspired to practice a lot and experiment, and that feeling lasts a long time. Don't know if it will be the same for arts with a visual basis, but there's no harm in trying.

Of course others have mentioned this, and you are concerned about ripping off other peoples' ideas. I'll share a little quote from my composition professor (music-related, of course). "Bad composers imitate, good composers steal." What this means is that you can take a good idea that someone else had and add your own inspiration to it which can make it entirely original even though the seed came from something which was not original. And for the record, there's no harm in studying someone else's work and trying to imitate the styIe precisely. That's how you learn and develop your technique, which you can then use to experiment. If you have limited technique, your inspiration will also be limited, because there's only so much you can actually pull off, regardless of what you may imagine. When I was younger, I had a lot of great ideas in my head, but I could never make any of them turn out like I imagined them. My compositional technique (especially my capacity to imagine and then remember a large tract of music before writing it down) was sloppy. As it improved, so did my art, because I had more musical tools at my disposal, and I had learned how to use them.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="Brutal_Elitegs"]I find when I am stuck in a rut, I need to distance myself away from art for a while. Also, I try to find inspiration in other people's work, but that also has a habit of kicking you in the nuts and saying, "Ha, you'll never be this good". Sometimes, you will find something that will totally kick-start your love for art/photography again, I know this thread helped me a while back.Brutal_Elitegs

When I get stuck in a rut, I think my biggest objection to looking at other people's work is that I'm afraid of ripping off their ideas.

I mean, it's fine to look at other people's ideas when you're full of your own ideas. But if you're out of ideas, and then look at other people's ideas, i think that for me the temptation to simply steal their ideas would just be too great.

:lol:

Looks like you beat me to the punch.

douglas adams would have a nice hot bath with a cup of tea.

answers come when your mind is relaxed and not thinking of the problem.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="Brutal_Elitegs"]I find when I am stuck in a rut, I need to distance myself away from art for a while. Also, I try to find inspiration in other people's work, but that also has a habit of kicking you in the nuts and saying, "Ha, you'll never be this good". Sometimes, you will find something that will totally kick-start your love for art/photography again, I know this thread helped me a while back.Brutal_Elitegs

When I get stuck in a rut, I think my biggest objection to looking at other people's work is that I'm afraid of ripping off their ideas.

I mean, it's fine to look at other people's ideas when you're full of your own ideas. But if you're out of ideas, and then look at other people's ideas, i think that for me the temptation to simply steal their ideas would just be too great.

"Bad composers imitate, good composers steal."

pianist

I'll add on one more sentence, "Great composers improve."

Try reading up on different artists/periods in art history. Going to galleries is definitely good too.

As for your actual work process I think that, first of all, you need to have an idea or at least a theme as a starting point. Keep skecthbooks with your drawings, ideas and your actual photos and experiment with them. New ideas will come from this. When an idea comes to you don't just translate it and then leave it - build upon it. I think sketchbooks are the key to developing your ideas.

[QUOTE="pianist"]

"Bad composers imitate, good composers steal."

ariz3260

I'll add on one more sentence, "Great composers improve."

Yeah, that's actually exactly what the quote means. The point is to take a good idea and do something even better with it - good composers - as opposed to taking an idea and simply copying it, usually with less stellar results. It's a quote which is very relevant to our culture, where most "revolutions" aren't really revolutions at all in the "totally original" sense, but rather major changes to already-existent ideas.

I was actually stuck in a rut for a about two years before I started gaining ideas and working on things that I actually love to do. Before, I had learned how to draw things realistically, but that never really captured my attention much. The motivation for the realistic drawings I've done were purely for a letter grade and had no desire to draw anything outside of school. What really captured my attention was art that was more abstract even though I know almost thing about abstract art. So I was always afraid to try something new until one day, while sitting in a 3-D modeling class I did not enjoy, I decided to ditch the last five weeks and work on an idea that I've had for weeks. That idea lead me to the artwork I do now.

The way I achieved that, which took a trial and error period to get to, was to stick to an element I was attached to (white lines in my case), create very strict rules on how I would apply white lines on paper, and find ways to go around the limitations. By starting like that with something very basic, you begin to find new ways to convey what you want to convey -- it is like creating a new pictoral language. Though I also feel that my work is not exactly working the way I would want it to, I do feel that I am getting somewhere with it and it has turned into something significantly more complex than the initial white line in between two black rectangles that started it all (which was not my intention in creating at first). Most important of all, my motivation for doing all of this is love for what I do.

What I would recommend is that you think about what you like the most in photography: whether it is high contrast lighting, bright colors, or any other basic thing. Then, limit yourself, making what you want to convey at a certain period of time a challenge by causing you to find a way around your limitations. Even if you don't achieve what you wanted to achieve, you will probably learn a new technique that can be used in another photograph. And that way you will create your own language, making your works more personal.

By the way, I enjoyed the picture you posted above. What grabs my attention the most is the shadow of the grass intersecting with the curviture of the sand, making me think of a loud silence.

Even if you think your work is not too good, just show it to others. Perhaps they will find something in it that they will get attached to even if what they are attached to was not something you intended to convey. After all, I do not think there is a wrong reason to like a work of art.

most "revolutions" aren't really revolutions at all in the "totally original" sense, but rather major changes to already-existent ideas.

pianist

For this, I'll tag on another line, "Phenomenal composers create".

[QUOTE="pianist"]

most "revolutions" aren't really revolutions at all in the "totally original" sense, but rather major changes to already-existent ideas.

ariz3260

For this, I'll tag on another line, "Phenomenal composers create".

Heh... listening to a little Alban Berg, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen may change that opinion. I have never and will never believe that "uniqueness" is a requirement of great art, and find that very often the drive to be different and unique leads to art which is wholly incapable of connecting with the majority of those who are exposed to it. It ends up being forgotten, and as such must be considered unsuccessful, since the goal of art is to communicate. This doesn't mean that you can't be both original and a great artist at the same time, nor does it mean that great composers are not original in any way. Most are - but they are original in how they manipulate and expand upon ideas from the past. There are very few artists who create anything which can not in any way be connected to something that was created before it.

When I get stuck in a rut, I think my biggest objection to looking at other people's work is that I'm afraid of ripping off their ideas.MrGeezer