 Welcome to this episode of Behind the Lens. The theme of this show is inspiration or lack thereof. I contacted three photographers who've been working in the field for decades. I wanted to hear their thoughts on what they do to find the muse when it isn't there. How do you find inspiration when it really isn't there? I have a pretty restless mind and so I sort of envision what is the next thing for me to work on. And absolutely there are some dead times. What do we do when the creativity just seems to defy us? For me I look at lots of media, I look at publications, I try to stir up my imagination and my ideas. Sometimes it's just by accident. She was out all day and she was working for the WPA and she didn't get anything that day. It was the end of the day and she was driving back to her house in San Francisco. She passed this little sign that said, need migrant workers. Pay you like 50 cents a week or something like that. And she had some feeling inside of her and she drove a couple more miles and then she turned the car around. And then she went to this basically almost like a refugee camp and found this mother with her children. And she did that shot and the rest is history. So she had that little voice in the back of her head that said, you know you might want to check this out. We all have gone through just dry spells no matter how dedicated or disciplined we are. There's just periods in our life like the pandemic, the beginning of the pandemic for instance. I read an article you'd written about how you really gave yourself an assignment and that's how you kept busy, kept active and kept sharp. Can you tell me a little bit about that? So it was called the 4x4x5 project. I actually had my partner Mary Lee every day jokingly say, can it go out and get me for? And I would go out. Give you four pictures? Four pictures. And I'd go out with a 4x5 camera with two film holders and each film holder holds two pieces of film. Two sheets of film. And I couldn't come back until I found something to photograph. That's quite a commitment walking around with the 4x5. Was it on a tripod or was it like a speed graphic? I was driving. It was on my car seat. It was a Wista DX. It was sitting on my car seat and it was one of those things where I would go out and I would look for what can I photograph. And the first day I'm photographing a barn and a railroad crossing and later I go, I want to photograph more people so then I start finding people. When people say to me, you must love living in Colorado. There's such a beautiful place. I go, there are. There's so many beautiful people because they think I'm going to go out and shoot mountains. But I'm not really interested in mountains. I'm more interested in people's stories. You could say, well, I'm going to go on a photo shoot today. I'm going to go X, Y, Z. It's like, well, there's no telling where you can get something. You can go to a place full of all the things that you think are going to be conducive to great street photography and then walk down a back alley when you're taking out the trash and that's where something happens. It's like, really, you just have to, I think, engage in life and just be watching. Be aware. So engage in life, keep an eye out and have a camera at your side. Ready? I turned on and... Ready to go. Ready? Already pre-focused often? Sure. Like, you know, typically we pre-focus our cameras. Sure. We'll have the exposure set. If anything's in front of me, I can point it and shoot. This is a Leica M6 that I use for film and I want to shoot 35 millimeter. And at the same time, I'll often take out a Nikon D610, which is a full-frame digital camera that's been sitting on my car seat for years and it completely is a workhorse. It just keeps working. I'll carry a little Fuji X100 because it's a silent camera and it's got a 35 f2 on it. So you use that a lot as a street camera in cities. I'll carry rolloflexes when I want to shoot film. I kind of let go of what I'm inspired by on a typical day. And some of that maybe even goes into that inspiration. If I pull out a 4x5 camera or a rolloflex, then that adds to the, okay, I can't wait to get started because I'm going to use this tool today. Hey Craig, how you doing? Well, I got a question for you. Okay, so as a photographer, right? As a photographer, what do you do when the muse isn't there? I go play disco. I don't know. I try not to force it. I mean, sometimes the muse leaves, who knows for what reason or when it's going to come back. And I just, I don't try to force it because I know eventually it's going to show up again and I'll be back taking pictures or doing whatever. Huh, well that's a simple answer. Yeah, I've never found that there's a, you know, when I was younger, I mean it was, the muse was there all the time. Yeah. The muse takes a little vacation once in a while. All right, well, okay. Thanks, appreciate it. All right, anytime. Bye. I'd like to thank Stephen, Kenneth and Craig. They helped me get out of a rut and I hope they help you get out of a rut should you find yourself lacking inspiration. Until the next episode of Behind the Lens, so long.