The Importance of not pressuring yourself to take photographs

A photography trip up into the woods behind my house in Drumnadrochit recently saw some incredible conditions. I made a video about how I was feeling and why I hadn’t photographed in a long while!

Just a few days before the Creative Light Festival, we have some amazing conditions locally. So we’re getting this mess that’s you can see it behind me that’s just kind of hanging around all day missed usually starts to lift around about nine in the morning, so usually have to be up really early to catch his beautiful conditions I show you behind me. It is now four o’clock. And it’s still like this. So I’ve come out for a walk, it’s my first time out, really shooting and filming with Skye. So it will be quite interesting to see what happens she didn’t actually want to come out today because it’s a bit wet.  She doesn’t like rain or wet on her feet. So a bit of a battle to get to come down here, would you believe it. So this is just at the back of the house. And it’s a lovely walk just up the open to the fields in the forest, just overlooking Loch Ness.

I’m not the best tree photographer. But when it’s Misty like this, you just can’t resist, and the colours are just fantastic just now. So taking a little bit of time out and going to photograph some of the trees and just walking in the mist actually is just incredible, such a sense of peace and quiet.

I have brought my camera with me today, I’ve got my GFX50s and a 32 to 64 lens. So I’m just walking around with that and keeping it simple. I think that the more that I go on, the more simple I keep my kit. And it really, it was something that I was thinking about actually was last week I was in, in Harris and those there for four days. But I didn’t take my camera kit out once. So I spent a lot of time walking on the beaches and just enjoying the walk and not photographing. And I started to wonder why I was doing this. Was  I was losing the inspiration to photograph or just not wanting to photograph anymore? I was a little bit confused because I haven’t photographed for quite some time.

Part of it is that I’ve been busy with admin and that comes along with having a photography business, and the creative light festival coming up to take taking quite a bit of time. But also, I haven’t really felt like photographing. I’ve had Skye, my whippet puppy who’s now seven months and Ive been teaching her and training her to be more sensible, and to walk properly, and not to run away and all these things that are going to be really important to have her with me at shoots in the future. But obviously, watching her at the same time as photographic at the moment isn’t ideal. So I think a lot of the time I have just had a bit of a rest from photography.

Also, I think it’s taught me something. And I think it’s been quite valuable, actually, to be simple and to just really immerse in Harris. That’s the time that I was there last week. So we walked on the beaches twice a day. And it was just lovely sitting in the dunes and playing with her and then just enjoying the environment. And that’s almost as important as taking photographs because I think we need that time to feel inspired and to be connected to the landscape.

So I think it’s really important to go easy on yourself. Basically, give yourself a break. And realize that if you’re out and you’re walking and you’re having some sort of inspirational day, whether that is coming along to the festival, this is one of the things that’s come up with a lot of people is that they feel a little bit worried that if you approach it like well, you don’t need to take photos every single time you go out on a trip simply being inspired by others being inspired by landscapes or just feeling connected to the land is equally important. In fact, it’s probably more important because if we go out expecting to take amazing photographs every time, we almost like let ourselves down and we beat ourselves up a little bit. And that’s not the point. The point is to enjoy, be in the landscape be outdoors. And just feel really relaxed about your work. And then it starts to come it starts to flow more naturally.

So, I think going back to my thought process of why I haven’t been photographing so much, I think it is a mixture of being busy with admin, but it also comes down to a little bit of contentment. The more that I progress, I don’t feel like I need to be doing this all the time. I am quite happy to wait for those certain days when I’m just going out because I really want to get my camera out; like today. It’s been so exciting today to be out in the mist and taking these images, and I’ve really loved it. And Skye has been amazing because she’s just listening to me now because I’ve taken that time with her over the last few months, not pushing and pressurizing to feel like I need to be photographing all the time.