I thought it’d be time to give a sign of life here. It’s been awfully quiet on this blog, and around my photography in general.
I’ll admit it, I had a bad case of photographer’s block. Or better yet (although I wouldn’t call it better in this case), a creative block. I lost the fun in photography, I couldn’t put any energy into it in the last couple of months. Well, almost a year for that matter.
Creative block
So I haven’t photographed much that’s interesting enough to blog about. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I did photograph some cool stuff, but that’s stuff I can’t show yet. And there’s some stuff I could have shown, but I’m hopelessly behind on my editing. I just couldn’t be bothered. As for putting new content on this blog. I could have. I have some stuff waiting to be published. But also, I just couldn’t be bothered. A creative block will do that for you.
So what’s been going on lately? Since the beginning of this year, it’s been a lot! Positive as well as negative stuff has impacted my life and caused my desire to take and especially edit photos to come to an absolute halt.
Work
Yes, work. Since somewhere in the later months of 2021, my workplace started to feel not-so-right-for-me anymore. There were a lot of changes going on, and they were of great impact on the team I was working with, and the career path I saw for myself. So a lot of my energy went into that, and it didn’t help one bit. Some colleagues left, and I put more in even effort, and it still didn’t change.
So I looked for a new job. And I found one. A really cool one. But one that’s been taking it’s fair share of my energy for a while. And that’s ok because I love what I do! I’ve always had a knack for processes, seeing how companies work and coming up with ideas and proposals to make things work better, and more smoothly.
And now, as a process manager at this really cool company called Wortell, I can do just that, all day long. After years of working in the technical field, which I didn’t like that much anymore, they saw me for what I was worth and we gave it a shot. I’m in my sixth month now, and I love it!
Photography
At the end of last year, I was approached by someone who wanted me to take photos. We got together to talk things through, and soon enough, we got from a one-time shoot to ideas for a really cool project which I wanted to do for free. I was prepared to put a lot of energy in it, but as life goes, the project never really launched, except for 2 free shoots I did.
I learned that trust is a cool thing, but not to trust everyone when it comes to shooting and not getting paid for it. A valuable lesson, but also one that bummed me out well enough to not start any new projects for quite a while.
What I did do was start on a dutch language site, which will serve as a portfolio for my portrait and people photography work. It’s not all done yet, but I’m getting there.
So now, what’s next?
Wow, it almost seems like I’m doing the year review thing already. But no, that’s not the case. I’m starting to feel the itch again. Even if it’s still a small itch. I want to scratch that itch, I want to grab my camera and go out again. I have ideas for projects, which are slowly taking shape. Most of them are way from ready to be put on the table, and some of them are big! Too big for the small itch for now.
So I’ll slowly pick up where I left off. I’ll go visit a city with my camera again. See if I can find some cool architecture. Maybe some people. I’ll plan some editing sessions again, to finally get ahead of my backlog of unedited (we’re talking more than a year’s worth of unedited stuff) photos. The weather is good for it now.
And I’ll start writing again. maybe not all about photography. Or not just about my photography. About others that inspire me. Their books, their music, who knows. Maybe it’ll be combined with some of my photos, too. (little spoiler, one of the projects entails me shooting photos or photo series to each song on an album I love).
~ B.B.
