What are your biggest inspirations/motivation boosts?

Switching back and forth a lot from being very motivated and eager to take some shots in one moment, and in the next feeling like I lack the energy for creating anything interesting and doubting my abilities, got me thinking about inspiration and motivation in general and recall a couple of instances where I really felt invigorated for a significant period of time by something I've seen, learnt, discovered or something that just surprised me in a positive way...

That's why I'm curious to know:
What are/have been your biggest motivating factors, motivation boosts or sources of inspiration for your photography?

It really doesn't matter how detailed or broad it is, whether it's something you see, some technique, something you learn, some new lens or other piece of gear or feature... everything is fine of course. I find it very interesting hearing about the experience of other's with something I repeatedly seemed to have a hard time explaining, when being asked about, like "sources of inspiration" or the "drive to try something particular".

To get an idea here's two of mine:

The realisation of how flexible light is: I'm continually impressed and fascinated by light and all of its effects and how it can be used in interesting and unexpected ways. I remember my surprise when I realized that it doesn't have to 'stay in its lane' (so to speak) when it comes to perspective/depth perception... (someone more scientifically minded might have an easy explanation for it, but I just can't help to feel like a happy experimenting child when finding out stuff like that) It can actually be used to trick our eyes very effectively:

You're a light collector as well? by simple.joy, on Flickr

Music bends reality… by simple.joy, on Flickr

Bokeh, egging me on… by simple.joy, on Flickr

The elegance and flexibility of water: I'm regularly stunned by how beautiful water and the various forms and shapes it comes in are for photography. Or course I'm trying not to overdo it and add it in every second shot, but when I return to it form time to time, my appreciation and joy to experiment are always there.

Drop the facade, you‘re green still! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Splashes to splashes by simple.joy, on Flickr

Drowning in sfear by simple.joy, on Flickr

Yes always very clever bokeh work from you, just stunning!

As you say, flexible light

I guess what motivates me is speed or action, birds in flight and motorsports. If it moves click it. With other subjects I like to see beyond what most see and manipulate to how I want.

Etc, etc, etc.

Being a red blooded male, cars, trucks and motorcycles. In the reverse order. Since I was a kid I loved going to watch moto-x, circuit racing, drags, car and bike shows, and so on. Tons of fun. Yip yapping to real life enthusiasts, sampling hamburgers and beer from all over the place, and even snapping the odd pickie. The camera just comes along for the ride.
And a little bit of travel. Not a big traveller really. Covid has f#(@&d that up though

"I like the smell of coke, get it?"

Getting out of the house. WFH is great and all, but when the walls start talking back, it's time to go outside. I like to explore. I like to meander aimlessly, looking to find something with a camera that is overlooked, missed or perhaps can be seen in a new or interesting way. I'm a voyeur, a watcher, a wonderer, a wanderer, an earth explorer looking for outer space on the only place I can get to.

There's also the challenge. Even now, all this information is super easily accessible, and it still doesn't stick or land well, no matter how many times I watch it. So there's the constant struggle to be better with a camera. Make better results. If looking at others' work doesn't inspire you, or at least challenge you in some way, wtf are you doing even owning a camera? Seriously, every artist that has or ever will walk the planet, except for like the very first guy, was inspired by the art of someone else.

Your photos are always so interesting to look at, congratulations again. 👍🏻

For me, one of my passions is photographing people, in a thousand and one ways. 😍

One of these deep topics. I fooled around enough to find out about the nature of motivation in different disciplines of life.

Long story short, I found three things.

One, you can rely on motivation only so much. It cannot be a singular pillar for your movement forward. It can be like drug, and if you don't get it, you are in withdrawal, miserable. Add other tools to your life to move you forward. Add different ways of motivation than just this happiness to do an act.

Two, check for reverse causality. Sometimes motivation comes from hard work and partial success after hard work, not from the sight of reward. First do, work it, struggle without motivation, then some unexpected motivation can appear. It often does. I recommend David Goggins for this. 🤭

Three, observe the lack of motivation. It has its reasons, base, merits. Either it comes from failure, tiredness, bad mood, bad life input, distractions, stress, lack of something, nourishment quality. Go after these, solve these. Motivation is given, not taken. If life is good as is, there is good apetite for it, including natural motivation.

Nice images posted here.
In the nature shots, I wonder about the reasoning. What is so inherrently attractive to us in a leaf with few dropplets of water on it? What is the meaning? It is trivial, noone cares in global scheme of things, right? Yet we love to see it, to experience it, to capture it. I do. There is some underlying stuff at work, and we cannot grasp on that. Some posituve natural force of evolution, preservation, survival. That might be enough, because we like to ovethink things.

Thanks for your kind words! That's very interesting and it actually combines two of the things I mentioned in a completely different way. I totally get the fascination for fast moving things and often stop to think about the impressive engineering genius which allows us to move around the world like we do.

Very creative and interesting ways to play with the things shown (like a meta-narrative). I like the last one best, it has a lot of potential with the interesting transition between flat and three dimensional shapes. Could certainly be an interesting series, even though I'm sure it's quite a bit of work!

Thanks! I don't really got the same fascination with motorcycles as many in my bigger family, but I always liked cars, and trucks (and excavators, and wheel loaders etc. 😉) and I certainly can appreciate beautiful shots, like the one above of the motocross race - very well captured!

I've been to many classic car gatherings as a child with my grandparents, so I have font memories of that. There has always been a friendly atmosphere there and lots of interesting things to look at. The second image above is a great capture of that.

Hope you'll get to travel some more! Always some great opportunities to shoot for someone interested in using photography for documentation. I've never travelled much to be honest, but when I did I always got the feeling it helped a lot in keeping an open mind in general!

Coke as in Coca Cola, cocaine, or coke made from coal?

But to try and answer simplejoy's question:

I should start by declaring that I cannot draw or paint to save my life. As a musician my ability is the control of sound and, although that involves the inspiration of the moment, most of it is achieved by long preparation. When I visit an art museum, I am most attracted by the unusual -- e.g. Archimboldo, Breughel, Turner, Picasso, Feininger.

I take photos of things that interest me, probably so I can remember and examine them in more detail later. I do not usually take photos of things that move (i.e. people, birds, animals, cars, aeroplanes, etc); but things that allow me time to get my act together, perhaps because I want the most perfect photo I can achieve... The other feature of my photos is that their subjects are not isolated from their environment as are those by others here, though I may remove ugly wires and cables that obtrude. I also have no interest in false colours, video recording, or black and white photography. The underlying science of photography is only of interest to me inasmuch as it helps me to take better photos. Like a bird, who has no interest in the science of aerodynamics or flight, I couldnt care less about the definition of "exposure", or the "rules of composition".

If this sounds very negative, it is not, as you can see by the fact that I usually find something that interests me to post each week in the Canon photos thread. I hope some of my photos interest others, but I am not certain of that!

David

Thank you very much for your interesting thoughts! You certainly got a point there... I'm often on the limit to that ("the walls talking back") and I feel even getting outside of the house for a little bit, helps a lot. It's interesting and very fitting - given your creative use of strong colors in many of your landscape shots - that you call yourself an "earth explorer looking for outer space". It might not be an exact documentation of what's there in terms of colors and light, but it sometimes can be a more accurate or interesting representation of our perception and the feeling it invokes. I often try to go for something similar in the macro range, like this:

Parallel bloomiverse by simple.joy, on Flickr
(it might not look like that, but it was a very spontaenous attempt to capture a feeling I had and a work of a couple of minutes in order not to 'overthink it')

That's a fascinating stance as well. As has been mentioned in the threads about "photography as art" and "other photographers that inspire you" (I can't recall the exact titles), there are some people who don't find any inspiration in the work of others. While I'm not among them, I think I can understand that. Not everybody feels the "challenge", the strive to get better you mention. Of course everyone is inspired subconsciously, but I feel like if you're happy with what you do in photography and you keep doing that, it's fine as well. I'd even wish I could accept what I do a little bit better from time to time... being very self-critical can be really exhausting.

I think it's because I myself love riding them, have done so from quite a young age due to growing up on a farm, and fully & completely understanding the potential for the major damage to the human body they're capable of inflicting in the blink of an eye. Which is part of the attraction to me. A bit of a hangover from our past, perhaps linked or ingrained into our DNA going right back to the danger and exhilaration of hunting prey for our own survival. Who knows.
Riding motorcycles will very quickly punish the unskilled, or complacent, you have to be on your game 110% the whole time. I'm at the point now, where I know my reflexes are not what they used to be, so have backed right off on the amount of miles I now ride. Which, ironically, is probably the worst thing you can do. I still like going out into my shed, sitting and looking at my little collection, and remembering the fast miles I've covered on them :) I've done myself significant damage on them on occasion, about the only thing I do regret, is not stopping more and taking more pictures when out riding them. Hindsight is a wonderful thing :)
It's also part, or a lot of what makes going to the racetrack fascinating and enjoyable. As you understand the incredible skill some of the worlds top riders possess, as they guide their ground bound missiles around the track. Sliding, drifting, wheelying and smoking the tyres at ridiculous speeds, the only protection being a bit of Cow skin & a Polystyrene bubble on their head, awesome to watch :)

people are born with natural honest motivation for life.

Thanks a lot - I really appreciate that!

Wow - truly excellent street photography! I'm continuously impressed and your love for it (and what appears to be a true interest in different lives you encounter) really shows. 👍

I don't know much about art in general, but I really like some of the artists you mention - I feel like there's a lot to gain from just looking at art which means something to you, that 'tells you something'. I'm convinced that for some people looking at certain artworks can help re-connect them with some parts inside of them, which might remain hidden or inaccessible otherwise. And that, in turn, can be very inspirational and even help you grasp certain things like compositional tools, effective symbolism, interplay of light, colors and shapes intuitively from time to time.

That being said, I still think the theoretical groundwork and teachings have their merit as the above mentioned approach doesn't seem to work for everyone. I feel like any theory becomes more interesting and relevant to me, the moment I feel like I'm stuck with my usual approaches. This feeling has also been responsible for the couple of times in my life when I really tried to learn something about music theory or focus on technical aspects of playing an instrument, instead of just improvising and hoping for the best. 😂

I'm sure that your subjects don't need to be isolated to be effective. It all comes down to what you want to show, what kind of response or feeling you want to evoke. In case of architectural/street shots as you describe and have shown some very nice examples of in the Canon thread, I think you have good reasons to take them as you do. I still am convinced that sometimes post processing can actually bring you closer to the real thing, because the images out of our cameras can look very different from what our eyes saw in the moment. So if you're memory is fresh enough I think you can sometimes get some of that back in there, as long as you don't overdo it.

I've seen many interesting shots by you in the Canon thread. I particularly liked the towers you showed recently... didn't know there are so many of those still around in Vienna - quite impressive.

BTW. architecture like that tends to work exceptionally well in B&W from time to time (I've always liked some of the brutalist architecture shots by John Jovic):
www.johnjovic.com/latest1.html

So while I'm also not the biggest B&W proponent in the world, I would encourage you to not completely dismiss it out of the gate. It may be rare, but sometimes it really seems to capture the essence better than a color shot.

Shoot for the stars! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Don't bee so negative! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Barely making fence meet by simple.joy, on Flickr

Featherweight photographer by simple.joy, on Flickr

Real swag, no cap by simple.joy, on Flickr

Immerse your soul in music... by simple.joy, on Flickr

I feel like B&W is one of those areas, where I learn a lot from looking at images by others who use it effectively... and it reminds me to continue trying it, even though my inital gut feeling usually is to leave things in color. YMMV of course...

In the 45 years or so I've been doing photography, I don't think I've ever once gone looking for shots. I document my life. Therefore, I shoot when things are going on (house, kids, vacation, whatever). I don't think I really know what "inspiration" means in the context of photography.

That's fine as well - seems like you don't need any additional factor for motivation. Documenting your life can be fulfilling as well. But given that you have kids: Have you ever looked at them doing something interesting and thought, you'd like to capture the moment or occasion for more than just the mere fact of being able to say: "I've documented that"?

If so, that is a kind of inspiration and great motivation as well at least in my understanding.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions! I certainly agree that relying on sudden lightbulb moments of inspiration is no viable strategy. However I relying on hard work and routine alone probably isn't a safe bet as well, when it comes to something like photography, which (to me) is a combination of art and craft. So for me it seems to work best to look for something I can attempt with a childlike curiosity. This way it doesn't feel like work, even though I'm putting a lot of time and effort into it.

Sure, the achievement of hard work and struggling through something has its merits, but at least in my case it has (so far) never been responsible for me thinking, I've taken another real step on my photography journey. For some people it might be though... But I've often heard the advice: "Just keep shooting and you'll get better", but without the addition of "Try to find something you really enjoy shooting". I think many people buy a camera, thinking, that they'll take some nice shots of their family and pastime activities, just to find out that it doesn't give them any real enjoyment. Then one day they find out, they really like shooting stars at night, or perhaps IR/UV. Someone I've seen share his story online, started shooting great looking and unique longtime exposures of interesting houses at night, making something useful out of his insomnia.

I have a very different experience with the bolded part. Some of the worst periods in my life, were the most fruitful in terms of creating and there can be plenty of inspiration in bad experiences, bad moods, even tiredness, lack of sleep etc. It's certainly not advisable seeking those out - I'd agree there. But if you have to struggle through something anyway, why not try to make something creative out of it. It might not work in many, perhaps most cases, but if it does it can be quite rewarding indeed and even help you get out of your bad place. I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to have a universal solution for getting over bad feelings, regardless of their popularity or accomplishments. People are different and so are solutions. (Just my two cents)

Absence can be felt. by simple.joy, on Flickr

I think @DonaldB has a point here. We feel a connection to Nature, because we're part of it. Doesn't mean that everybody has to enjoy the sight of raindrops on a leaf (as @LeeJay can probably confirm 😉) but It's likely as simple as that.