So I haven't really submitted anything in a looong time. Pretty much since I started school in September. I'd really like to get back into taking some pictures, but I'm feeling really out-of-practice both creatively and technically. Tonight, I allowed myself an hour to take something for 'kitchen gadgets', and came up with only 20 pictures, all crummy. Part of the problem being, of course, only always having a limited amount of time, since there is always schoolwork to be done and to feel guilty about not doing. So I get impatient and don't really have the willpower to force myself to concentrate on it for more than a few minutes.
Not that I'm studying all the time, really though. Just that I can't seem to be able to set aside large chunks of time for anything other than schoolwork and friends/family-type activities. Solitary pleasures (including sleeping and washing clothes) seem so...hedonistic. I think I have forgotten how much time and effort I put into photos back in the day (last year) when I actually had a lot of free time to take them.
I know there are other busy folks out there. How do you manage it? Are you able to set aside an afternoon or a night to strictly devote to photography? Or are you better than I at doing things in small chunks, like half-hour photography blocks that might not necessarily result in a finished photo, but at least might get you closer to the end result?
Also, does anyone know of some sort of short exercise-type things that I could do to get back into thinking the right way. I'm thinking of something analogous to the short etudes you'd play getting ready for a concert, or the 15 minutes of warm-up before a workout...Just something short I could accomplish fairly quickly.
Kimbly |
