I strongly believe in the state of flow.In psychology it’s described as when you become less aware of your environment and more aware of your internal thoughts. This happens to your brain when it is doing a task that is familiar enough that your brain stays engaged but not board. Examples include taking a swim, shower, long walks/ drives, raking leaves et cetera.
More often than not, I find my ideas come out of the brief moments when I’m in those states of flow. It’s a very strange “zen monk” sounding trick, but it’s backed by science and I believe in it...
I am very research oriented and typically will spend many hours over days gathering information on what it is I am thinking about. Typically this happens in moments of passing and less in an organized sort of manner. I gather all the information I collect in my note app, or Evernote, or write it out long hand. I also save links like a crazy person to reference back to.
I often find there is a large lull that happens between me having an idea and actually executing it. Sometimes weeks or months.
Once I start shooting, things tend to move quickly. By this time, I have been thinking about the project for so long that I know what I am going for, and it’s only a matter of sorting out the good from the bad images.
After capturing the images and going through the sorting process— I am faced with the issue of presentation.
Here is where I have a bit of a crisis. Because really if the images are good then a simple print is all that’s needed to finish them. But in this day and age where everyone is a photographer and everyone can print a simple image, is simply printing it good enough? This is where I consider process. Classic silver prints, cyanotypes, etc. They offer a level of involvement and tactility that simply is not present with the digital print. However, conflictingly, I believe strongly that the process should mirror or echo the work. I would not be doing cyanotypes unless I thought I had a good reason to be doing them and not every project lends its self to classic/alt printing styles. This is where I struggle a lot.
As with all things. There are exceptions to this, namely— street photography for obvious reasons. Other things include of course that this is a very straight foreword sounding process and is 100% a retrospective thing. Never is it this simple. There are always hold ups and issues deviations and complete 360ing of ideas.