Photography is a craft that requires consistent dedication, engagement, and learning. And although everyone takes photos for different reasons, it’s common to get caught up in the motions of life and become complacent, empty, and no longer push the boundaries of one’s own creativity.

Your photography has stopped improving - and you may not have even noticed it.

It’s not because you’re a bad photographer.

It’s also not because I’m sitting here being mean or trying to bring others down.

This is me being objective and honest based on what had caused my own photography to become stagnant in the past.

Problem 1 - You Consume More than You Create

In a world of digital and social media, it’s easy to get lost in endless streams of content. People are posting on instagram and youtube every day - artists who are better than you and artists who are younger than you. Similarly, the algorithm is also better than ever. Platforms show you exactly what you want, which results in hours spent on our phones without even realizing it.

Therefore, it’s very easy NOT to notice that we have become stagnant.

Our art isn’t improving and it’s our responsibility to reverse this effect.

Many try to justify their social media usage with “it helps me get inspired” or “im looking for new ideas” or “I’m studying their stuff”.

Here’s the thing: you don’t need to spend hours watching other people’s content to be inspired. You just don’t. A great quote from Hormozi is that “action inspires motivation”. Not the other way around. Meaning action does not require motivation and doing something will incentivize you to do more. I find this to be true because it’s often that looking back on something I did in the past makes me want to create more.

So ultimately how do we solve this problem?

Here’s my trick to cutting out my own social media usage: I set limiters on instagram. I set aside a time for 15 minutes of scrolling a day - and it works. This usually comes at the end of my day when I’ve done all my work, exercised, etc, and most of the times, I don’t even use it.

Overall, the mantra to keep in mind is: create more than you consume. This has been with me for a long time and it’s extremely effective. The way to keep improving is to make sure we create more than we consume. For every hour we spend watching someone’s stuff, spend two working on yours.

Problem 2 - You Do the Same Things

Even if we create more than we consume, we can still find ourselves in a cycle of stagnation - because we keep doing the the same things.

An example of this was my entire last year of photography. From exploring places around Europe to events like Coachella, street photography was something I enjoyed and sought to improve in. However after reaching a sort of burnout with youtube and photography, I went back to a clean slate. I told myself I’d take photos of whatever I wanted to take. I started going on walks - not in downtown areas but in nature. I became immersed in cloud photography. I started picking up zoom lenses more often. I began creating things I could have never imagined myself making a year ago. Seriously, the me from back then would have been shocked. But I think it all worked out. Because not only do I have a new enjoyable subset of photography to engage in, but I can still choose to pursue street photography from the new perspective that I have now.

As humans, routines are essential. They are how we live our lives and how we get things done. But with creative work, it’s easy to get stuck in a routine - and that becomes our box. We may have once tried something that worked, or used some technique or implementation that got good results. And naturally we try to replicate that in an effort to get the same results. It works, so we continue.

That’s the issue. To improve you have to try new things. Period.

If you’re doing the same things all the time, you may get better - but there’s a limit. It’s often in creativity that unique combinations and ideas come from trying something new. This is important, even if it takes you back to square one. Some times this may mean taking a step back to take a few steps forward.

So if you find yourself too deep in habits or routines, break it. Do something different. Try something new you’ve never tried before. You can always return to what worked later, but don’t allow what worked to become your new cage.

Always remember two things: create more than you consume and try new things.

Thanks for reading.