It is part of most human endeavour to find ourselves in a rut sometimes. The wheel is spinning but we're going nowhere. It happens to photographers too and we just can't seem to find anything new to shoot, anyone that inspires us or an original thought in our heads.

It certainly happened to me during the pandemic when I felt locked down both physically and mentally. Some days I could not be bothered to leave the house even though I was bored inside it. On the days I did, no matter which direction I went in, the same paths, buildings, trees and fields were there. All of which I had now shot a hundred times. So how do we go about getting out of a rut like this and refresh ourselves? Here are six things to try :-

1. Go into your garden (or other familiar place). Take fifteen photos in fifteen minutes. They all have to have something different about them. A different angle, a different colour, a bud, a flower, a leaf, some in-camera movement, a double exposure - use your imagination. Work quickly. Think before you start, planning is everything...
2. Take a selfie, but one that expresses an emotion which you feel at the time. Make it interesting and use metaphor for impact. Use a different technique. Or a hat, Or glasses. Or something that covers half your face. Think and then act.
3. Go for a walk for half an hour straight out of your front door. Make a documentary about it and tell the story with your shots. Where did you go, what did you see, who did you meet, what did you do while out? Look, look and look again.
4. Look at images by your favourite photographer. Try to produce one that is inspired by it over the next twenty four hours.
5. Explore a new technique that you have not tried before or a new way of editing a photograph. Give yourself two days and mark it out of ten to say how satisfied you are with the result. If it is less than seven, do it again....
6. Look for items in your house and arrange them to make an unexpected still life. Use only natural light. This means knowing where it will be and when....

The pictures in this blog all come from some of the times I have done these things. They may not be great but they got me moving again, and most importantly, thinking....