Why you should strive to get into a rut

- In a previous episode of The Practicing Photographer, I encouraged you to go out, and try to fill your card while shooting. And to demonstrate that, I spent about an hour shooting in an industrial park. My card was so big, I couldn't fill it, but I aimed to really shoot every 30 seconds, and I continued to say that that is a good practice to have. In that episode though, you saw that I was surprised when I came back and I found these four pictures that I shot at different times, and in different locations during that hour. I did not know that I was shooting these similar compositions, and was very pleased to find that oh, these four images go well together.

What was more interesting is when I got home, I found that I also had this image, and this, and this, this, this, and this, this, this, you get the idea. I didn't realize it, but I've been shooting that for a long time. Now that I'm aware of it, I'm, I've kind of blown something because now I go out and I see that and I start to shoot it, and I think, oh man, I'm shooting this same thing again, I'm really in a rut with this image. There a lot of different ways that you feel photographic rut, sometimes you feel like you are shooting the same composition over and over. Sometimes you feel like you're shooting the same subject matter over and over, or you're recognizing the same play of light over and over.

It's a terrible feeling, because you feel limited as a photographer, you feel like a one-trick pony. I would encourage you that you want to get in as many different ruts as you can over the course of your life, and here's why. So, I'm now very practiced at shooting a vertical line up the middle of the frame. Boy, I'm good at it. I can do it over, and over, and over. That is now a piece of my photographic vocabulary, it's something that I can use when I'm building a composition. When I see something interesting, I know that well sometimes photos work well when you put a vertical line in the center of the frame, maybe that applies to this situation.

The more of those kinds of building blocks that I have, the more versatile I am as a photographer. The more I'm going to recognize things out in the world. More importantly, the more I'm going to know how to solve compositional problems when I encounter them. Just think, what if I had, what if I'd been in 50 miserable ruts over the course of my life. That would be great. I would have all of these different things that I could use. There's another thing that, and this is still theoretical, but I'm hoping, so I've been shooting the same composition for a long time, and none of the individual pictures are that great. They look really cool together, but what if, one day, I come across this situation where the perfect composition for it is to put it as a vertical line in the center of the frame? Boy, I'm going to be ready for that.

I'm waiting for the day when that happens. And again, if I'd been through 50 other ruts I would have 50 other perfect abilities for the right photographic situation. So, if you feel like you're in a rut, congratulations, stay with it, keep going, keep shooting that shot, try to find some other ruts to get into also, but don't think of it as a rut, think of it as practicing a piece of vocabulary that's going to be very valuable to you in the future.