Last Post On Regaining Photographic Inspiration

The road to success is almost never straight.  To find success, you have to understand yourself. (click to enlarge)

After my recent as well as past posts on photographic malaise, loss of inspiration and ways to regain it, which you can find here, here, here and here, I received an email from noted photographer and author, David Jenkins.  I think Mr. Jenkins' words speak for themselves so there is no need to augment them with any of mine.  Also, I cannot disagree with anything he writes.  I urge you to read them carefully as his points are right on the mark and can prove very helpful to those of you who find yourselves in the photographic doldrums.  He has given me permission to reproduce his email here.

"Dennis, may I say very kindly that I think you and the people you have been e-mailing with are looking in the wrong place for a solution to your photo-malaise? You are all looking at process, not purpose. Changing cameras, lenses, shooting film, seeking to emulate other photographers (although that is not necessarily a bad thing in itself) -- these are all process issues and are not a solution. As the always iconoclastic Andrew Molitor says, 

"Photographers, culturally, seem to have a terrible problem with looking for technical solutions to creative problems."  http://photothunk.blogspot.com/ 

The cure for photo-malaise is not process, it is purpose. Why are you taking pictures? If the goal of making pleasing photographs is simply to make pleasing photographs, your efforts will sooner or later run out of steam and lapse into photo-malaise.

I was a photographer for many years, even a professional for much of that time, before I discovered who I am as a photographer. When I was photographing for clients I was more often than not working on some kind of project and toward a specific purpose. I often found that work deeply satisfying, although I did not at the time understand why. When photographing for myself I sought to make pleasing pictures, but more or less at random.
It was while working on a project -- photographs for the book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era in the mid-'90s that I began to find a sense of who I am as a photographer. After the book came out it attracted some attention in the art photography community and I received an e-mail from a well-known art photographer who urged me to create an artist's statement, defining myself and my work. I thought about it, and this is what I came up with: 

"My domain is the old, the odd, and the ordinary; the beautiful, the abandoned, and the about to vanish away. I am a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life." 

While traveling for the Rock City Barn photography, I began picking up pictures for another subject that interested me, and now it's almost ready to become a book: Found on Road Dead: An Anthology of Abandoned Automobiles. 

Since that time, I've been accumulating photographs for various projects in keeping with my statement of purpose. Photography for Lost Barns of Rock City, a book of Rock City barns that were lost from Rock City's records and which I discovered on my various travels or in response to tips from people who knew of barns that were not in the first Rock City Barn book, is almost complete. Other book projects in various stages of photography include Old Houses of Georgia, People of Georgia, Tennessee: A Backroads Portrait, and Israel Today: The Land and the People. 

Does all that sound ambitious? Of course it is! Will some (any) of these books see publication? Possibly. Georgia: A Backroads Portrait is complete and is currently making the rounds, looking for a publisher. And Countryman Press, which rejected the book, nevertheless assigned me to create Backroads and Byways of Georgia, which was released this past June. I have been given the go-ahead to do a similar book on Tennessee if I want to. I'm delaying that for now because I want to concentrate on the Israel book. 

Meantime, I don't have to worry about photo-malaise. I only have to worry about finding time and money (for travel) to work on my various projects.I am 80, in reasonable health, and have a reason to get up every morning. I will continue to pursue my photo-projects as long as I can."

Mr. Jenkins is exactly right in that your inspiration, drive, vision and ambition in whatever you desire to accomplish must come from inside.  Exterior stimuli are well and good, but are short lived and temporary.

Thank you, Dave, for your prophetic words.  Very timely.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2017 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.