The Relationship Between Happiness And Creativity

I’d like to think my blog is a bit more that just a place to boast, to promote and share all of the awesome super-positivity that people love to read. Sometimes I think you just have to be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more based in reality. After all, life isn’t all roses. Sometime you have good days, sometimes you have bad days. So this is a bad day post.

Things have seemed to have slowed down a lot in the last month or so, although honestly it feels like a lot, lot longer than that.

It feels like so long ago that I was running off of the creative and confidence high of shooting my very first wedding, soon followed by first time second shooting, but in reality this was all just this summer.

On the upside, I have a number of weddings booked in for 2013, which I am really, really looking forward to, but right now that also feels like absolutely years away.

So I now find myself in this period of nothingness. This horrible dark, bland filling, in a sandwich of awesome things. Sure I’m tinkering with gear a bit here and there, and taking a shot or two on the weekends when it isn’t raining, but for the most part nothing is going on, I’m not taking any pictures, and it’s making me unhappy.

Having this extra time on my hands has caused me to become a little more philosophical about photography and it’s effects on me and my personality in the last 12 months. (I have my obsessive over analytical personality to thank for that)

I’ve been thinking about what I would have been doing with my time if I hadn’t been doing photography, reading, practicing, learning, shooting etc. I only picked up my first SLR at the start of 2011, so I must have done other things, right?

I really couldn’t think of anything. Nothing really grabs my attention and keeps it like taking pictures, so it’s impossible now for me to imagine a time when I didn’t do it. How weird is that?

Then I starting thinking about the relationship between happiness and it’s effects on creativity, motivation and the quality of my work.

I started thinking back, and I also couldn’t think of a time that I could link photography with anything other than happiness. Even when my photo were rubbish, and I was learning the very basics, I still found the process fascinating and enjoyable. In fact looking back through my portfolio, all of my favourite and best images where taken while I was happy and enjoying photography and life in general. This got me thinking. (Over analysing again, probably)

Am I unhappy because I’m not being creative. - OR - Am I not feeling creative, because I’m unhappy.

It’s interesting, I think. If the quickest way to get me out of this creative rut is start feeling positive again, how do I do it when the source of my positivity, is being creative.

When you put so much of yourself out there, and into your work, how do stop yourself from spilling over and messing it all up when it isn’t going great? I’m sure you could put up a barrier, but then how would that effect your work?

Photography isn’t a 9-5 job where you can just keep at it, and clock off when you’ve had enough. Making, showing and selling great photography requires 110% of your heart, passion and personality every single day.

I think it’s extremely difficult and over looked aspect of being in a creative industry, where so much rests upon your ability to create emotive, personal and positive work, when you may not have all of those emotions ready to go into creating that work.

Like I said at the start, we all have good days and bad days. I suppose the trick is to be ready to make the most of the good days when they come around, which I hope, is very soon.

I would like to hear from you in the comments below, if you have ever had a photographic “dry spell”, or how you deal with the emotional roller coaster of being a photographer?

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