Nothing Inside

Willow Grove, Pa.  (2011)

I've shot virtually nothing in the past month. I take my camera out with me every day, but nothing catches my eye. Several times on a day off I have thought... "I should go drive someplace and find something to photograph"... but no inspiration comes to me. I've learned to just let these periods of nothingness pass on their own accord. I see a similarity to baseball here. Hitters can go into long slumps. They get frustrated and try too hard to get hits. They swing at bad pitches, making things worse. The only way out of a slump is to relax. Get your head away from the game. Stay focused on the long term. (Insert cliche) You get the idea.

But I also know that sometimes change in routine is necessary. I think I am at the end of certain creative paths and in need of taking some new direction. Photography has seemed uninspiring to me lately. I get urges to begin working in other art forms... painting, sculpture, writing poetry or short stories. I'm not a painter, or a sculptor, or a writer. I'm a photographer. Just in a slump.

I need to finish out some previous projects. By that I mean finish the artist statements I have been putting off for way too long. I can't begin any new work without completing my existing projects. I have a book dummy in progress for Poetry of Nowhere that is now sitting languid because I can't find the words that go with the images. The only way the book will make any sense is with a decent essay (or two) and a concise artist's statement. And that is the source of the block. The slump. The dread before getting back into the batter's box. The constant nagging inside my head to write the statement. Getting great ideas and thoughts, only to have them slip away into amnesia hours later.