A Question Of Motivation.

I love photography. There's just something about capturing a moment in time that seems powerful to me. But I find that lately my motivation for photography is slipping.

When I purchased my first DSLR I went crazy. I took photos of everything and anything. Then I started learning. I took the New York Institute of Photography's Complete Course in Professional Photography. I learned so much so fast. The whole time I was taking the course (3 years for me) I was constantly taking photos. Then I completed the course.

Now that I have no reason to practice my course materials I find that my motivation for taking photos has slipped. Don't get me wrong, I still love photography and I still love taking photos but I just don't seem to have the same passion for it anymore. Some days I don't even look at a photograph or take my camera out of the bag.

I've been thinking, again, about how to better motivate myself to get out there and practice this art I love so much. I know, I've blogged about this before and probably will again but I'm really struggling with it this time.What am I going to do?

I have noticed that listening to photography related podcasts and watching YouTube videos really make me feel like getting the camera out and taking some photos.I guess this is a great start then. I have my iPhone so listening to podcasts happens all the time for me. I'll just need to ramp up the photography side of the podcasts I listen too. As for YouTube, well I subscribe to several photographer's channels but I think I may need to look for some more.

Another thing I'm going to try is always having my camera handy. When I got to the day job this morning I took it out of the bag and put it on my desk I took the lens cap off and put the hood on the lens then turned it on. Now when I see a great shot or some great light, I'll be more prepared to take advantage of it. I'm also going to keep my camera out of the bag in my truck on the commute to and from work each day. There have been times where I saw something that would have made a great photo but didn't have my camera out in time.

As I right this, when I should be working at my day job, there is some fantastic early morning light streaming into my office window. I'm feeling motivated so please excuse me for a moment while I take advantage of this amazing light......................................Ah, that's better.

Here's what I got!

Now that I have gotten that out of the way I can focus on my motivation again. Just kidding. I realized that I had my camera out and the light was just right so I found a couple of good subjects to show off that light. Good thing I did it when I did too, within a couple of minutes some clouds crossed over and the light was gone. By the time the clouds moved the sun was much higher up and the light was a much different quality.

So for now I guess I'll up my consumption of photography related media be it podcasts, YouTube videos and blog posts. Hopefully the universe will help me out and life will be grand again.

Chris.