Everyone is obsessed with finding a photography subject. Whether it’s people on the street, light, shadow a mesmerizing landscape or a beautiful model. If you stick to a subject you can find yourself in a rut very quickly. Before you know it you’ll be uninspired and weeks or months will go by without having taken a photo.
Over the almost 15 years I’ve been photographing, I’ve found myself in ruts like this many times. The way out of it each time has been to photograph nothing. I don’t mean don’t take photographs at all, no not at all. Take photos of the mundane, banal and dull occurrences of everyday life.
Maybe you’re filling up your car at the gas station and you see the contrast of a blue sunset against the yellow of the gas station pump along with some lights of a closed warehouse in the distance. Take that photo. Don’t dismiss it as nothing. It may seem like nothing but it is in fact something.
Maybe you’re at your desk one day at home and you see the a bit of light and shadow of the window on the wall right above where you’re sitting. It’s nothing, but take a photo of it.
Maybe it’s a straight lines on an orange stairwell when you’re out for dinner at a restaurant or the bright yellow interior against a blue sky. Probably nothing, but still take a photo.
Or a teal door with shadows and some rustic looking bottles behind the door. Life is what happens when we’re not looking or paying attention. Its in the minute details of mundane everyday things. Life happens with nothing is happening. We all have camera with us at all times and its a fantastic camera to photograph nothing.
