“Most artists have experienced the creative block.  We get stuck in our work.  We beat our head against the wall: nothing.  Sometimes, it is just because we are trying something at the wrong time.”

– Lukas Foss

I can’t make the words come out.  I start a new post, write paragraph after paragraph, then delete it all and start over.  I have stared endlessly at this damn flashing cursor, trying to tease an idea out of my head that I want to share with you, but it just won’t take shape.  Not yet, anyway.  

Does this ever happen to you?

What is interesting, however, is how otherwise productive this week has been:  I have created new photographs, played a lot of guitar, delivered another photography presentation to a wonderful group of people and invested time in my book.  For some reason though, the words just won’t come out for the post that I have been trying to write.

Creative slumps happen to everybody of course, they are an inevitable and inescapable part of the process.  Sometimes I feel like the key is to buckle down and push through them, while other times I find success by changing my focus for a bit and working on something else.  Such is the case this week I think, so I have been working on a few other projects instead.

While doing so, I ended up in a Lightroom folder called “Vancouver Street Photography – Unpublished” and was surprised to find it full of images that have never been shared (other than the odd Instagram post).  Some were taken while teaching workshops, some during days of dedicated shooting, some in between meetings and appointments and others at completely random times.  It was interesting to look at these images from the streets of Vancouver, taken between trips to Toronto, Amsterdam, Seattle and Paris this past summer, and see a body of work that I had completely forgotten about.  

So, while I wait for my muse to return, I’d like to share some of these images with you over the next few posts.  I hope you like them.

Cheers,

Ian