Catching The Next Wave

If there's one thing that pains my ear drums more than anything else, it's when photographers complain about being stuck in a creative rut. After all, most of us have been blessed to be involved in a career that also happens to be our life's passion. Hearing colleagues complain and rant about a creative art form we're all supposed to be jazzed about doing can be quite annoying.

So, when I hit my own photo slump late this winter, I kept it quiet for the most part. I only told a few people about how I felt as if I was "phoning it in" at assignment after assignment. Sure, I was shooting photos that were good for the newspaper's needs, but certainly not anything that was showcasing my personal eye for things. The events I was photographing were, for the most part, things where people were hardly doing anything, if at all. They were assignments full of people sitting around at tables, or staring at someone talking blankly in front of a Powerpoint screen. No matter how much I tried to work these situations, sometimes staying for an hour or more, the visuals just weren't there.

Here's one of my gems from "one of those" assignments a few weekends ago. Is this image what the paper needed to tell the story? Yes. Clip winner? Doubtful. Personal vision exercised? Disappointingly, no.

Not only did I keep my slump quiet for fear of violating my own disdain for others' rants, but in an era where many photographers are struggling to find any work at all, I was happy to be getting regular freelance assignments. To dig my photo slump even deeper, a big increase in work on the video and stage lighting design end for me early this year left my still game really out of practice.

Braving a steady, biting northwest wind, Scott Bort pressured me into shooting surfers on Lake Michigan with him last Sunday, and I'm glad I went.

While at the lake, Bort shoots me shooting water jetting into the air as 8' waves pound the end of a pier we were using to get different angles of the surf action. (Photo by Bort).

Out on the water, surfers were enjoying some of the best conditions so far in 2009 after a very long, iced-over winter.

A welcome relief came on Sunday when my friend Scott Bort called me up and told me he'd be out at the lake front shooting surfers and invited me along. I started shooting lakesurf back in 2004, and whenever conditions are favorable, I make the trip out to one of several hot surf spots along the lake's southern shore. The tight-knit local surf community has learned who I am by my often wind-tattered hair flapping around over my large white 400mm lens over the years, and its members usually welcome me to a session with a warm smile or respectful head-nod. Many of them have even supported me by purchasing prints of my work.

Even though I've shot surfing countless times over the past five years, and even though many photos from session to session have a similar vibe, the surf photo op. on its own isn't what really draws me to the lakefront. There's just something soothing about being out there for a few hours on the edge of nature's awesome display. Having a visually engaging subject matter doesn't hurt either!

Sunday's waves were especially large for Lake Michigan, cresting as high as eight feet on-shore. Standing at the end of a nearby pier, I could feel the vibration dance through my shoes as the waves pounded the end of the manmade structure. It's a great experience to look out at the waves and see nature moving and shaping the shoreline, for the most part, out of control of human beings, and even putting manmade structures like the pier to the test.

I suppose the waves and the surfers that love them might serve as an interesting metaphor for the lives of us creative types. Sometimes we're at the top of our game, riding the wave and having a blast. Other times we're stuck between sets, waiting to paddle onto the next crest. But we've always got that next wave to look forward to. Even when the water is calm for a while, the waves always return, and they're always pushing us closer and closer to that "shore" of career goals many of us (like myself) set for ourselves as early as middle school.

Riding in the "tube" is common for surfers in most oceans, but not so much on the Great Lakes.

As creative types, we're truly spoiled in a lot of ways. Not only are our "jobs" our life passions, but sometimes the subjects of our work allow us to see deeper within ourselves, and better understand where we're headed in the big picture. I don't know of too many other lines of work where one is afforded such a privilege.

I know when I'm in a slump, it's not too long before the next set of waves is there to ride.