What is it about creativity? Sometimes it can pour out of you like a firehose and other time it’s like pulling water from a stone. It’s an unrelenting question confounding anyone who spends time searching for personal expression in photography.

It certainly is more than situational. I have created beautiful pictures in what would normal be considered a bad place to shoot and been to amazingly beautiful places and come back with only average pictures. The potential for creative expression is there despite the options presented to the photographer. So why one day and not the next? Why on a Tuesday morning, but not Wednesday?

From my experience it does take an open mind and what I call unfocused vision. Similar to setting your eyes out of focus, but setting your mind out of focus as well. Taking what is presented to you and shifting focus to seeing the whole scene. Not what first captured your attention or seems to be floating around in your mind at that moment. Layering an unfocused vision over your point of view. Pushing your mind out of the way and letting the reflections of the world around you have a chance to come into view.

It’s not the solution to finding creative flow, but it has helped me see the world in different ways.