Press the shutter
I take photographs differently now, and I've noticed I think so hard about what or who I'm photographing, sometimes I don't even get a chance to snap the shutter. I'm not sure if its a new found anxiety, or maybe I'm judging the photo before its even made. I brush it off usually, with something I've been telling myself. Sometimes, you can just take the picture in your mind's eye, and that's enough.
That's absolute bullshit, sorry.
I trusted my mind's eye before, and that's what got me as far as I got, and I need to continue honing it and making work I'm happy with. How though? The world feels different now, its not 2010 or 2012, and you can't just walk up to people and ask to take their photo. Actually, I think you can. That's exactly what you do. For the past few years, I feel like I've been holding back, and that's when my work gets sloppy. You can always tell when someone's not putting in 100%, and I think that's why I've been feeling uninspired and down about the work I've been making recently, or should I say, the lack of work.
The other day I was driving home, and was at a stop sign. I was across from this Chinese place I've ordered take-out from a few times, and I saw this older woman with a beautiful, floral dress, it almost didn't look of this time, walk through the front door, inside. I felt the reflex to grab my point and shoot or even my phone to snap a quick picture, and knew that it would be a wonderful shot, saw the framing, the colors, the whole thing in my head, and there was no one behind me. I had time and instead I just drove on.
I need to trust myself again, and retrain my photographic muscles, reflexes, whatever you want to call them. Going through my negatives, rescanning some of my favorite old photos, I've started to have more faith in myself again. That's life though, when you're passionate about something like photography, or painting, or any art form, really, there will be long stretches of time when you're just not feeling it. It doesn't mean that you aren't a photographer, or a painter, or whatever you are anymore. That could never happen. It just means that your eye is changing, and you're learning to use it in different ways. It may seem weird at first, and you may not like the new ways you're using it, but that is all the more reason to keep trying, and to keep making new work. The stagnant feeling will leave you, and you'll find yourself making work that satisfies the person you grew into, and are continuing to grow into.
After all, photography is a time based medium. The benefit to being a time based medium, is you can see exactly the kind of artist you used to be. The cons of it are that you can't see where you're going in the future, only where you are when you press the shutter, and if you don't even press the shutter, well, what's the point? So press the shutter.