I booked some long assisting projects recently and haven't been able to work on my own stuff. When those long projects ended, I found myself frustrated and irritable, and feeling like an imposter photographer. I thought to myself, "I need to get inspired, get motivated, get to the point where I feel like a photographer, so I can make some pictures."
And you know, I can do all the little things that I find inspiring:
- walking around downtown
- looking at work from photographers that are around my level
- listening to albums from artists I admire
- reading
- looking at stuff
but I'm beginning to see that this stuff usually has no immediate effect.
Then: I don't get to make photographs when I feel like a photographer, I get to feel like a photographer when I make photographs.
Which is what more advanced photographers have been telling me all along: keep making pictures.
