All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
- Pascal

I am asked pretty often by colleagues and newbies to the business, how I am able to work through a “creative block”, what I call the photographer’s version of writer’s block. I must admit, in the past few years, I haven’t experienced a “creative block” that lasted longer than a day at most. I keep myself busy and am constantly shooting, but that “busy as a bee” atmosphere can also be the cause of a “creative block”.

Growing up I was a dancer. I would spend ten hours a day in the dance studio perfecting my craft. From early on, dancers are taught to find their center. In dance, finding your center means learning how to properly hold your body and find that point at which movement of the body comes with ease. Gravity, combined with a dancer’s movements pull them in many different directions, but a trained dancer always comes back to their center of gravity. Finding your center is not just about position, it’s a feeling – a point at which all outside factors disappear and you are one.

Eastern culture and religion teaches that “Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation often involves turning attention to a single point of reference. It is recognized as a component of almost all religions, and has been practiced for over 5,000 years.”, says wikipedia. CG Walters, a novelist whose writings focus on the metaphysical and mytical, recently wrote on his blog, “Of all the practices that one can pursue to provide health, clarity, stress reduction, psychological resolution, and emotional and spiritual growth, the most consistently powerful method is that of “centering”—bringing yourself to your true energetic core—to what you are before and beyond your familial, societal, and egoic restructuring and reshaping.” CG Walters discusses using forms of Meditation to find a place where you are most connected to “yourself, your life and everyone and everything around you.”

• You want to shoot, but there are no ideas.
• You have ideas, but you just can’t get yourself to shoot them.
• You’re so busy, your ideas don’t develop and become concrete.

I feel that, as artists, photographers need to consistently be stimulated by the world around them while finding their center of gravity to truly let their creative juices flow without getting stuck in a creative block. Finding your center does not have to be a religious experience, or even a quiet experience. Since a young age, my attempt at finding my center has always been fulfilled by finding a place to sit in a busy New York City park and take in the sights and sounds or better yet tune out the sights and sounds and find a place of comfort. Have you ever walked 40 city blocks in the dead of the night with rain pouring down on you? It is an almost cleansing experience. There is a comfort that I strangely find among the 8 million people of the city that brings me to a point of total awareness, a point at which I can think clearly and at ease. And that is the point at which an artist can find clarity and creativity.

You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go… Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

About the author

Kevin Michael Reed
Kevin Michael Reed (Google+, Facebook) is a fashion & beauty photographer and producer/director based in New York City and Los Angeles, CA. He is the President/CEO of RedFOG Visual Media, a production company in New York City, and a partner in Passion of Photography, Inc, a company dedicated to teaching photographers and sharing our passion through charitable causes. Kevin has lectured and hosted workshops throughout the United States and the world teaching photographers the business and creative sides of photography. (Kevin's Fashion & Beauty Photography Portfolio can be seen here).