What to Do When You Hit a Wall With Your Photography

Whether you are an amateur or professional, it is something that we will all struggle with at one point or another: hitting a wall with our work. So, what can you do when things just are not going well? This insightful video discusses the topic and offers some great advice for getting out of a rut. 

Coming to you from Justin Mott, this great video discusses how to deal with hitting a wall in your photography. It is something every one of us is bound to encounter at some point in our photography journeys, so it is worth thinking about how you will handle it when it rears its head. If you are an amateur and photography is simply a hobby, often, the best thing to do is simply take a break from it. You are not obligated to pick up your camera after all. On the other hand, if you are a professional, it is important to prepare for this inevitability by having an arsenal of techniques and creative ideas that you know work well (turn to your past portfolio for this) that you can turn to if you are having a rough time. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Mott.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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5 Comments

I hit a wall two years ago. I had traveled to Colorado for the whole month of November, 2019, to photograph the Whitetail Deer rut (breeding season).

I was out in the deer woods before sunup every morning, and stayed out until twilight every evening, not wasting a minute of shooting light and giving a top effort. Yet, after the first two weeks, I only had a couple of high quality, marketable deer images.

I just wasn't getting the deer to give favorable poses in places where the surrounding woodland vegetation was aesthetically appealing. Day after day, they would either present themselves well against unpleasant looking parts of the forest, or I would find them in beautiful parts of the forest, but they would not face the right direction, or just not perform any interesting, photogenic behavior.

I really had no choice other than to just stick with it and be patient. So I kept at it, getting out into their habitat each morning before sunrise and searching for deer until after sunset, day after day after day. The continue effort and persistence eventually paid off, as I found several very good image-making opportunities with some of the largest bucks.

Overall, that photo trip was a success and I got a few dozen images that were successful and sold well. But it only happened because I just kept doing the work day after day, despite having no success for the first couple of weeks.

Some serious persistance! Would love to see your favorites.

Thanks, Jim!

My favorite Whitetail Deer photos are together in a page on my website, and it includes several from the November 2019 trip that I discussed in my comment.

tomreichner.com takes you to the home page, then just click on the Whitetails in the Wild gallery.

Whitetails are great subjects. I noticed the necks of the big bucks in your shoot....quite swollen. They really start to look 'masculine' during the rut. :-) You got some nice shots! My whitetail destination is nothing like your trip. Right here in Winnipeg, there's a conservation area called Ft. Whyte Alive. It's land donated by a concrete company, about 650 acres. There is a large population of whitetails and because they see people a lot, no hunting, and no predators, the deer aren't spooky. I go there to do bird photography and invariably, I'll get whitetail shots because they roam right into the field of view. This is why I love wildlife photography.

David,

You are so fortunate to have great Whitetail photo opportunities so close to home. The closest photographable Whitetails are 6 hours from me, which keeps me from being able to photograph them as much as I would like to.