Why I haven't taken any photos for just over a year now.
I was traveling north on I-5 on my way home from visiting my grandkids in California when I stopped at one of Oregon's numerous covered bridges. The time of day made the lighting optimal, and the shots I took were perfect. I got some really nice sunsets from a rest stop a little further north. Later, back home, when I cropped and touched up the photos in Lightshop, I was really proud of them. I said to myself, "these shots are perfect, just like postcards."
Then it hit me: My very best shots, the ones I was most pleased with, were the ones that looked the most like postcards or travel magazine photos. Every shot I took was, unconsciously, an attempt to imitate the best photos I'd seen in the past. There was nothing of "me" in the pictures.
Sunsets? "Red on top, brown or green on the bottom. BTDT (Been there, done that)."
Landscapes? "The river winds around the bend and disappears behind the trees. Yup."
Florals? "Look at those dew drops on the petals! Yup."
Candids? "Old man on a park bench. Yup."
Still Life? "Flowers in a vase, surrounded by some knick-knacks, on a richly textured table cloth...etc. Yup."
Atmospheric? "Lone figure in an alley, walking away, silhouetted against the bright street light on the next block. Yup."
Kittens? I love kittens, but heaven save us from more cute kitten photos!
Tabletop set pieces? "Little plastic people using miniature cranes and hoists to take apart a life-size camera. Yup."
What about those amazing photos that imitate the style of the old Dutch Masters? They are beautiful, but what? I should imitate an imitation?
I discovered HDR, but that got old faster than Thomas Kincade or Manheim Steamroller. Over-cooked, gimmicky, and like velvet Elvis paintings, just plain embarrassing.
I played with focus stacking, but, again, I've already seen extreme closeups of an ant's ugly face. The best I could hope to do is to again imitate something I've already seen.
So I finally came to the inescapable conclusion that, photographically, I don't really have anything original to say. So I packed my camera away.
Now I'm beginning to think that perhaps my path to originality lies not in the pictures I take, but how I treat the image after it's out of the camera. I'm starting to experiment with image manipulation of various kinds looking for "my voice".
I don't have anything to share yet, but I'm excited to be trying something new that might turn out to actually be original!
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I'm still in the stages of trying to take the best shot of what I "see" and then discover what editing can do to improve the final photo.
But I hear you. The contest we had last month--based on creativity--was fun. I was looking through my archives for a specific photo
and happened on this spider web shot I'd taken when the sun was first up after a dewy night and the light was reflecting off the web. It
occurred to me, also, that the bokeh had enough different colors in it that it almost looked liked different pieces of colored glass. Voila!
The kaleidoscopic effect came to mind and I started playing with how to bump up the bokeh to increase the feel of looking through a kaleidoscope.
It blew me away when the photo won the contest because to me I was just playing with a shot that I wouldn't ever have considered to be a "best shot".
Photography for me is about having fun. I hope your experiments with trying something new will turn out to be fun for you and I will look
forward to seeing your results! 
