Sell everything and buy a fuji.

>>2787962
what a great meme! i'm loving this meme. i'm making it my default answer to any question from now on

>>2787961

everytime you had a time to spare, go out and shoot. Do a travel, and shoot whatever you wants.

Your weddings gear will give you another kind of viewers to your real photographys and also more quality though...

Travel. I can't stand taking pictures in my shitty hometown.

Great photographers don't need exotic trips to take great photographs.

My #1 tip to get you back on track? Make it your 2nd most important thing, or 3rd at least. Study the masters, find artists (not just photographers) you like. You will sooner or later develop your views.

>>2787961
I sold all my gear and bought new gear. Reinvigorated my desire to go out and shoot.

Also travel

change format/form factor. Digital fag? go film. 135 cuck? Go MF. Black and white MF/LF artfag?Go rangefinder with slide film and cross process. Just challenge your self to get out out your comfort zone(=rut)

>>2787993
>Implying he hasn't already studied the masters.
Everybody looks at rhe masters, it's the first thing they do.
>Great photographers don't need exotic trips to take great photographs.

Travel! See things you've never seen before. it opens your eyes, it inspires you more than looking at the same old Ansel Adams pictures over and over

Set goals for yourself?

I'm in a rut now, waiting for better weather again. I a hate going outside when it's cold, even more to take pictures

Traveling usually coincides with warmer weather too, so I do that too

>>2788009
what kind of goals?

find another hobby

>>2787961
Start painting or drawing

>>2788006
>ansel adams
no i think he means contemporaries too, and people who are actually doing things with photography.

>>2788714
where to start, though? i never had talent

>>2788740
Art Academy on the 3DS

Sell everything and buy a Leica MP with a 35mm Summicron ASPH

If it has been over a year, maybe you should quit photography.

I feel like this, every so often. I try to shoot every day, but sometimes it gets to feel like a job - so I take a few days off. Usually I sit at home and watch Netflix or I hike/camp without my camera.

For a good 3 months, though - I've gotten out of bed and all I've wanted to do is go out and shoot. I've been covering about 1000km per week, driving around taking photos.

>>2788896
>Leica MP
i have a d750, i'm not going to trade it for a shitty leica

>>2787961
Stop doing work for pay. The goal there is always to please someone else and not yourself.
Go someplace pretty and neat.
Go lofi for a bit. The pinhole that fits nikon bodies from holga only costs about $20 and is fun to play with.
Change things up: if you're a landscape guy, start shooting only at night. Do some light painting. Give astro a go. Go shoot a local sporting event. Basically try something different.
Bring, at most two lenses. If you're a zoom guy, shoot a couple of primes for a bit. If you're a prime guy, shoot a zoom -- simplify what you do. Use gear limitations like a poet uses the restrictive form of something like a sonnet -- a frame on which to build an idea, not a barrier keeping you from one.
Leave /p/. This place is cancer. Likewise avoid cancerous photographer personalities like Jared Polin...as a matter of fact, fuck any photographers online...with an exception. Seek out artists and look at their works. What'd be better would be to go to a book store and look through some books, but the internet isn't all that bad. Ignore whatever is being said and just look at the works.
Storm chase on weekends.
Sit back and think about why you like photography. Most people I've met don't like photography per se, but they like that it becomes an excuse to do things like travel. If that's the case for you, just drop the camera and do what it is you wanted to do.
Take up drawing/painting as a hobby for a bit.
As for the gearfagging bit, remember that literally nothing else matters but the final product. What you took it on, what settings you used, what post processing you did, etc. All that matters is the final image. An iphone picture can be just as amazing as a shot taken by the PhaseOne 100MP back...it's being able to identify or create that scene that makes a photographer.
Oh and the final way is just keep shooting.
https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating?language=en

>>2789098
Fuck, my bad. Wrong TED talk. I didn't know Gilbert did another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA
^this one is about living a creative life and how to cope with things like slumps. I don't give a damn about this woman's writings, but I think she makes some excellent points in the video.

>>2789098
i've never been one to follow other's work or idolize "the greats". in fact looking at pictures bores me, and i try to avoid it. for me it was always about creating shit that made me feel good about myself, but at some point my ego got too caught up and started to rely too much on other people's opinions. i guess i need to introspect and find out what's in it for me, and just me.

the only guy i ever followed or at least gave a fuck about was old ken rockwell and his writings about simplicity, composition and the less-is-more concept. it made sense to me at the time, even though he was gear-whoring at the same time, and proved to be right after spending some time at cancerous places such as photog forums (canon, nikon, dpreview). all gear talk and little to no real photography.

thanks a lot for the writeup, man. i wish i had someone to go shoot with, i think that would make it less painful to start again. lack of self-confidence is a bitch!

>>2789145
>in fact looking at pictures bores me

i think you have chosen the fucking wrong hobby buddy bro.

>>2789145
>never idiolized the greats
I didn't say anything about "greats", I said artists. Find the shit that you like and use it as inspiration. It can be as profound or banal of works as is possible, that doesn't matter. What matters is it appeals to you.
>looking at pictures bores me
>it's about creation
I'm curious if that first bit is actually because you haven't found photographers that you actually are interested in. To be honest, I actually agree with you with regard to the majority of more well known photographers. I respect the hell out of what they do, but it's just not for me. This might be just being over-exposed to such and being reprogrammed to look at it from an analytical point of view instead of just enjoying it...
>introspective and what's in it for me
Yup.
>ken rockwell and his writings about simplicity, composition and the less-is-more concept
Yeah, you got your head shoved up your ass by the internet. If you actually listen to artists and check out their work, there's a massive separation between the gear and the work. There are a lot of people out there who are all about simplifying the workflows and just getting out there and shooting...hell dude, that's literally exactly what lomography is all about. Hipster as fuck, but it's got a great underlying philosophy.
>wish I had someone to go shoot with
join a local facebook group/set one up/and arrange a trip.
>lack of self-confidence
I know exactly what you mean. I got my head up my ass because of some stuff that was going on in the local scene -- basically some literal idiots leading a couple of groups far, far astray (not in a subjective way, a literal objective way). I pulled back hard into myself until I stopped and realized that this was happening because I was letting it happen. I was making myself irrelevant by not participating. I wasn't being above it all, I was making sure that I wasn't to be paid attention to...I know this is a little different from your situation,

>>2789240
...but the root cause was the same. I lost a lot of confidence, was questioning myself, my eye, my knowledge, and my value. Because of that I stopped participating and stopped working in this area for an extended period. During this time, the people who didn't know, didn't have the training, knowledge or experience that I had kept going and kept active. It's that deal about doers versus thinkers/the whole man in the arena bit.

What I've definitely learned is don't be afraid of failure, especially if you're not doing this on a professional sense. Fucking just get out and do it. It truly is better to try and fail than to fail to try...just make sure to learn lessons from the failures and not keep making the same mistakes. I'm including this bit because no matter what path you go, I'm afraid you'll get sucked into this same situation again because the root of it is that need for external acknowledgement of some form. That's the biggest thing you really have to get away from...doesn't matter if you're doing photography, decide to start playing the guitar, drawing, or whatever. Failure is part of the process, don't be afraid of it and don't be afraid if others know you failed. They won't care as much about that as knowing you've given it a shot, and even if they do, it doesn't matter. There's plenty that they fail at too.

Best of luck.

>>2787961

Pick up a 35mm slr, shoot B/W film, develop it yourself. Then take those negs and print a contact sheet, then darkroom print shots from the sheet that look interesting or just pick 5 if you're still being all depressed.

If that doesn't get you excited for shooting photos again its time to learn to tie a good noose and take a trip to the great beyond.

>>2787961
Stop caring about the subject or the style. Find your creative vision and shoot from that.

>>2787961
Work in another field, maybe something STEM.

Then this can be a fun hobby again.

If it's already a job, how would you convince yourself to do even more of the same than you already do...? Most people don't work that way, they get either bored or too bothered and stressed out with efficiency concerns. Not that you should work at minimum efficiency for a hobby, but constantly optimizing is not usually fun.

plan a project. Like Gary Winograd has a set of photos taken in zoos. Elliot Erwitt has a set of photos of dogs on the street. The project can take months or years to finish and within that year of finding or shooting a particular subject you will find a few good photos that can be good.

>>2791378
yeah, no. i'd rather shoot myself in the face than go full "OMG MUH FLIM" retard

Simplify your gear if you're used to taking multiple lenses and bodies. One lens, one body.

I was taking 3 bodies and 6 lenses per day with me at one point. I was shooting street snapshits. No fucking need for all of it, but I wanted to take it, "Just in case"

Burned myself out prepping and packing everything everyday. Bought a 35mm manual SLR, a manual lens, and a 5-pack of film. That was all I took out for a few weeks, and now you probably couldn't pay me to take any more than the bare minimum, and photography became more fun.

Also, forget everything about the technical details of a picture. Composition, exposure, depth of field, focus, etc... It's all just shit that art school photographers came up with as a basis of an ideal picture so they had guidelines for critique and grading.

Those things are important, don't get me wrong, but your photos should match your own vision, not the vision of a photography professor.

I stopped caring about that stuff and let my eyes do the photographing instead of my brain, and I have a lot more fun because of it.

As long as you get something you like, and have fun doing it, it will be impossible to burn out again.

Photography is stressful for me when

>I try to take pictures because that's what I "should be doing"
>I try to force or search for ideas that just aren't there
>I attach too much importance to photography so that I ignore my own personal needs

Photography is enjoyable when

>I make pictures when I feel inspired to, not when I don't. If life doesn't give me any lemons, that's okay.
>I don't try to come up with ideas for the sake of taking meaningful pictures, I make pictures for the sake of communicating an idea I've already come up with. Photography comes after ideas, unless those ideas are specifically about the photographic medium or its traits.
>I don't engage in photography if it's stressing me out.

>>2788148
Tell your people on jewbook that you'll post the best pic you could take that day, every day. Then do it for a while