Dealing with the Blank Canvas

One of the first major struggles in photography is the "blank canvas effect." This reality hits hardest when you're trying to decide where to go for your weekly shoot or when you're attempting to follow through with a new photo project. When you have a list of exciting new locations and subjects to visit, photography can feel effortless. Motivation is high, and grabbing your gear is easy because half the battle is already won. But what happens when you reach the end of that list, or when a project wraps up? You're suddenly left thinking, "What do I do next? Where do I go now? How do I keep improving?"

In my experience the blank canvas effect can trick us into believing things like, "My area is boring; there’s really nothing left to photograph," or even that the last photo project was a "fluke of creativity." When in reality it’s just that the task of starting from scratch is much harder than continuing in a state of flow with pre-established ideas.

I recently decided to drive to South West Scotland for a couple of days. Initially, as I looked at the map ready to plan my trip, the blank canvas effect slapped me in the face. I had zero knowledge of the local area, no locations pinned, and no idea where to even start. For a moment I considered abandoning the trip, thinking it might be a waste of time due to my lack of knowledge. ‘‘I’ll just go somewhere familiar instead’’ I thought. I was staring at a blank area of the UK, and the thought of the research required was daunting compared to revisiting an area I already know quite well.

The best way I've found to break this cycle is to remind yourself of one key fact: you had to find all those new places and develop your last photo project once before, and you can do it again. Yes, it will take time and research, but you can almost enter a flow state within that idea generation phase too. All it took was a few initial pins and a bit of reading to get me out of that funk and fly through my planning, for what turned out to be a very successful few days of a photography. Just making a small very small start is often enough to get the snowball effect rolling.

Plus let’s not forget its totally normal to have periods of time where you don’t have a plan. In the meantime, don't fall into a state of idleness. While you're in the process of scouting and gathering new ideas, allow yourself to just have fun and experiment. You can always cycle back to old locations or subjects you might have shot years ago to stay busy and keep the creative momentum flowing. Alternatively, it's often something you do in this "downtime" of playful experimenting that sparks the new idea that leads to your next breakthrough moment.

The Struggle with Time

The next struggle is one that hits close to home for many of us: time. More specifically, it’s about how little time a lot of us get to dedicate to photography, and how difficult it is to stay on top of everything we want to achieve with our hobbies. Everyone's available free time is different and can change from week to week. Yet, I would bet you won't find a single photographer or creative person who feels they have too much time for their hobby or that their life feels boring because of an excess of free hours.

It can certainly look like people online, on social media or YouTube, have all the time in the world. They're always at new locations, constantly shooting, and seem to have it all figured out. But this perception is only relative to our individual lives. The truth is, regardless of how much time anyone gets to dedicate to their craft, almost all creative people feel like they are playing catch-up, with a task list longer than their arm.

Consider this: if a photographer is shooting four days a week, that means they have four days' worth of photos to edit, archive, master, and upload. While that may sound like a wonderful problem to have, the workload essentially balances out the equation. We are all just trying our best to do our best with the time we have. The only variable that truly matters is how we spend our time, rather than how much of it we have. If you have one free day a week, and you get out there to shoot and have a genuinely great time, that single day is going to leave you feeling fulfilled and excited for the next one.

The days I feel the worst are the ones I spend indoors, telling myself I'll be productive at home, only to end up rearranging the cutlery drawer and waiting for the postman to arrive. That sense of wasted opportunity is far more detrimental to morale than simply having less time. Ultimately, while everyone wishes they had more time for photography, the key is to make the most of the time you do have. Get out there, shoot, and have fun. Prioritising the act of creating will often help you feel much better.

Hitting a Brick Wall

This final struggle is one I've experienced several times, and it's a feeling that has in the past made me question whether photography was the right craft for me at all. I believe that at some point, and likely multiple times if you do photography long enough, we hit a brick wall regarding our subject matter, the direction of our shooting, or even just the way we edit our images.

What makes this slump quite dangerous is that when our excitement dips and we lose interest in what we're working on, we often start getting seduced by the idea of new gear, a brand swap or booking an over the top trip to make up for the lack of inspiration we have. I mean just a few months ago, I hit a wall, and the "gear devil" landed on my shoulder, suggesting a complete overhaul of my camera system.

While there's definitely a time and a place to drastically switch up gear for a change of pace or a new workflow, you can always make profound, exciting changes without making a single hardware switch or spending a penny. The last big shift I made was moving away from traditional, untouched landscapes and towards photographing abandoned places and random, disused spots. That change cost me nothing (apart from all the petrol I put in my car).

Making a drastic but free change first is the ideal way to figure out if you just need a new hit of inspiration that lies outside your norm. It's also entirely possible that you try something new, enjoy it immensely, and it then guides you right back to your original subject matter and you just needed a little time away from it to recharge and see it with fresh eyes.

Hitting these walls is completely normal. In fact, I would argue that if you shoot the same sunset at the same lake for ten years and never feel bored, never want to switch things up, or never question if there is more you can do, you might actually be holding yourself back from further learning and experiences.

Off the top of my head, easy free changes that can instantly help in these situations include:

Switching from color to black and white photography.
Stopping your dependence on golden hour and going out in the middle of the day or at night.
Trying a new genre, like street or architectural photography instead of nature.
Focusing on people instead of empty scenes.
Experimenting with different aspect ratios or focal lengths.

There are endless things you can do. It's like taking a "holiday" from your main thing without actually stopping photography entirely.

Featured