Dealing with an Artistic Crisis

This week I had a hard time figuring out what to write about, I was struggling with conceptualizing ideas for small photo projects, I didn’t want to go shoot nor did I had ideas for blogging that motivated me. But I came up with something I think you’ll appreciate (or at least I hope so), after beating my head over and over again I figured, why not talk about what I was going through this week? Why not talk about dealing with an Artistic Crisis and how can someone make the best out of it? 

What is an Artistic Crisis? 

Well, the truth is you may already now exactly what they are. If you’re photographer, or any type of artist, you’ll run into this moments of struggle from time to time, this sort of un-motivational wall that is really hard to get over, and that you may just don’t recognize as a moment of crisis. This is when nothing seems to be working for you, when you loose direction and start comparing yourself to others and feeling less, these moment where you feel stuck and feel like you are not good enough. This moments are moments of Artistic Crisis.

The question is how can you turn this Artistic Crisis in your favor? How can you become productive again? Well, I’ve built a list of steps (or more like a list of suggestions) that might help you figure out how to get through your Artistic Crisis. 

Find your artistic path

The first thing you should do if you’re in an Artistic Crisis is to grab a pen and a sheet of paper and write about why you got into photography, write about what you enjoy watching and why you enjoy it. Then do a list of the things you enjoy doing with your art and classify it, for me it was doing documentary work, street photography and then fashion. This will help you get a sense of direction a sense of a “starting point”. 

After you do this you will, most likely, start perceiving some clarity and feeling more relaxed. Then you ask yourself what do you want to achieve on a small and large scale, for example I really wish I could work for a skateboard magazine as a full time staff photographer get on trips and document everything but I would also love to be featured in art galleries for my street photography and sell photo books that people actually enjoy. After you do this you will start pinpointing the areas you should work on, the things you really like and the things you should and can do to achieve your goals.

Now that you know what you like doing and want to keep doing, you write about the things you need to improve on to achieve those goals. You might need to do research on wedding administration if you want to do wedding photography, or look at avant-garde art because you feel like that can somehow influence your work in a good way. This is the phase of transition or more like of discovery, you’ll feel renewed and that’s a good thing, because you have found your artistic path.

Coming up with Ideas & Staying Motivated

Now that you have found your artistic path, your direction in life, how do you come up with ideas that help you create? This process is different for everybody, but on a general I will suggest three simple things:

-  Ask questions, simple or complicated questions, but ask questions. What bothers you? What do you want people to know about? What do you want people to feel? Questions that you know are not only good but can be exploited through visuals, ‘cause after all that is your job as a photographer.

- Study other peoples work, even if they are not photographers, study their process of creating, of being. It can be very helpful to study other people that have nothing to do with photography because their creative process is different, and one can always learn from that.

- Become willingly sensitive to everything around you: music, movies, food, news, society, feelings, books, etc. Make life your root of inspiration, and absorb what you like and maybe even what you dislike about it.

Then you should find a way to make it visual, to make it well…Art. But then, how do you stay motivated? Simple, you keep asking questions, you keep creating and keep improving the way you communicate visually. It’s a learning process that at the same time lets you create and enjoy, and if you stop enjoying this, you go back to finding a path and finding your interest, because it is probable that you’re not doing what you wish you’d we’re doing.

Don’t compare yourself to others

Comparing yourself to others is kind of a difficult topic for me, and here’s why…I’m a perfectionist and an envious because of it. I want everything I do with photography to be perfect but hate when someone else does stuff better than me. I have figured that it is wrong to be this way but it still doesn’t quite help me. Anyhow, comparing yourself to others is a really bad idea, simply because (and this is the harsh truth) there is always going to be someone better than you, same as people that are going to be worst. So please don’t be like me, stop stressing yourself because Billy Manily gets gigs all the time but you don’t. Instead of that, learn from Billy and from everybody else that you feel are somehow better than you. Study people and take stuff you’d like to have from them (not physically that is) and build your artist presence. Make those people your friends and work together, it will bring a whole different perspective of who they are and how they work.

Don’t be so hard on yourself

Lastly, this is an advice I have to take myself, and that is, to not be so hard on yourself. Even if you want to be perfect it’s impossible, specially with art, not everybody is going to like what you do and that’s okay. One of the many beautiful things about art is that it’s not supposed to please everybody, and it’s completely acceptable because it gives us the ability to choose, to somehow become a part of something not everybody understands. So take things easy, have a cup of coffee or a cigarette if you’d like and just have time to chill and do art for fun rather than for work. Remember that you started shooting because you enjoyed it even if it didn’t have a reason to be.

Well, that is basically it for this weeks blog post, hope you enjoyed it. Remember to comment, share and subscribe to the Blog down below, it will be greatly appreciated, plus you’ll get notifications whenever I publish a new article here on the Blog and may even get free stuff now & then. Also follow me on Instagram @JosephLopezPhotography to see all the Images I don’t post on the blog or the website. Hope you enjoyed this article and I’ll be posting more stuff soon.