At the first Oak Mountain State Park photo class [Spotted], one of the other attendees asked me about my photo experience. I managed to garble a few words and blink. Really, I’m getting terrible at any interaction not mediated by a keyboard. So, I came home and thought about why I photograph.
Self-Improvement
It’s good to learn new things, right?
Self-Expression
Making the blog more visual.
Self-Employment
I used to be paid to take photos. Someday someone might do so again. Would be good if I remembered how.
All of these are worthy goals. What they are not is immediate goals. Any of them would be just as valid if I put them off for a day. So I do. Plus, as far as the blog is concerned, I often default to the phone as my best camera, i.e. the one I have with me.
I want to. I intend to. Suddenly it’s Friday and I got nothing.
How do you motivate for valued but nebulous goals?
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
Metaphorical kick in the backside? Find a competition with a due date and work towards it? I used to have a fire in me, to improve all the crafts I do. It’s gone. Maybe when I’m more settled I’ll get used to it. I’ve got all the quilts I need. And no money to buy more fabric. Quilling? Just don’t know.
I’ve done the WordPress prompt challenge where you take and post a photo a day. I think I hung with that for about 6 months? Other options are to take LOTS of pictures of one thing. Hopefully there will be multiple photos you can come back and use for different blog entries. (Obviously, you want variety, so I’m not talking about taking 50 frames of the kitty sitting on a stone wall.) I’ve done the lens challenge where you pick a lens and shoot everything that week using only that lens. That was fun and educational. Or you could pick a camera setting and shoot ONLY using that setting for a week. Action. HDR. Aperture. Manual Focus. Again, like the one lens challenge, there’s a nice lesson built into that too, and you begin to really learn what does and doesn’t work for the setting you choose. You could do a subject challenge; horses only for a week, dogs only for a week, landscapes only for a week. Sunrise/sunsets only for a week. Lots of different stuff you could do to make little goals to pick up your camera for a little bit every day. But I should talk; I’ve been totally unmotivated the last (almost) two years myself. 😦
Oh, and I forgot what is the most helpful thing for me. Find a photographer who blogs and follow them. It helps if they photograph subjects you like, but that’s not totally necessary either. I found a guy I really enjoy, not just because his work is great, but his attitude is so amazing. He doesn’t mind sharing simple instructional stuff (unlike most pros, who pretend they can only tell you something useful if you’re paying thousands of dollars to go on their photography workshop trip), and he constantly talks about how, contrary to belief you really don’t have to go much farther than your own back yard to shoot really great photos. He’s right, and I like the reminder. I’ve learned so much from him and he’s a great source of inspiration. This is a link to his blog. Feel free to delete if not copacetic: https://danjurak.wordpress.com/
All good ideas. What is needed is pry bar to lift ass off couch, metaphorically.
Recommendations are always welcome, as are sources of inspiration.
I am generally not a fan of self-help books, but I read one recently that did deliver. Mostly because it offers worksheets that I found quite useful when I MADE myself use them. (I’m a hopeless fan of worksheets) The book: Self Coaching 101 by Brooke Castillo. Certainly not new, but it helped me recognize patterns of self-sabotage and offered real solutions to change them. YMMV.