Maybe brainstorm a little with the different things you'd like to photograph. Start with a feeling that inspires you or an image and work from there. Just go with the first thing that pops in your mind and as you go, you might come across the idea or angle that is stuck just below the the surface. When I need to write and I am stuck I make myself just go and worry about proper format and structure later. Also, if you don't already, try taking your camera with you everywhere and take pictures all the time.

'Pretty' is a subjective term and maybe that is holding you back subconsciously. Maybe on some level its hard to face what you want to capture. There is beauty in pain and misery too because its real and raw, but it' also hard to face.

Yikes this is long, Sorry! :)
 

this is really helpful... i used to carry a camera all the time, till it broke. this helps confirm that i really have to get a new one. one day i was walking to work and came across a pigeon that must have just run into a plate-glass window. it was lying on the ground dead, eyes open and looking completely whole and intact except for the crimson puddle forming around it's head. it absolutely killed me to not have a camera along because i thought it was one of the most perfectly heart-breaking things i'd ever seen.


then too, i realized i had some fear in me of freaking people out by photographing it... and maybe that's part of the root of the problem. i have to be willing to appear 'ugly' myself in order to capture the shots that really speak to me.

 

I actually have a picture of a dead pigeon - it was in an empty fountain! How poetic is that?? Go for the "hard" stuff. I think all of your photos are amazing.
And well, sometimes a dead pigeon is what it takes ;o)
 

Hmmm...I think you just touched on it. Go with "ugly" and you will find yourself on a journey that few choose to travel.


I had two photographs hanging in my home for years, and everyone who saw them thought they were hideous. One was a picture of a homeless man (who resembled William Burroughs) digging in a garbage can, and the other was a picture of a wealthy to-do woman standing beside a Bently outside a Dept. of Health and Human Services building.


Despite the guffaws and heated debates I would get into about these two pictures, I coveted them, to remind me of where I came from, and to remind me that no matter how much I want to succeed in life, that my soul and spirit were more valuable.


That is the power of an "ugly" photograph. I have also owned pictures of flowers and plants. I hang them in my bathroom.
:)

You have a beautiful talent, a keen eye, and a tremendous capacity to see things in a unique way. There are plenty of lurking things in this city of trees, yet to be discovered.

 

Take pictures that are of things not so pretty , There's enough ugly out there! Give people the other side of the coin, and just maybe they will start being grateful for what they do have, Not for what they have not! It's one option???
 

I agree with the other comments. Some of the most famous photographers are the ones that are able to capture and show the true grittyness of humaity.
I have a book called " The Artist's Way"
By julia Cameron. It is from a course in discovering and recovering your creative self. It may help so I shall give it to you.

 

Try doing things that make you artistically uncomfortable.

Or just uncomfortable in general.

You never know what kind of tiny gem you might mine out of the experience.


-M
 

Hey sweet girl!
I agree with the comments above... and I should also like to remind you that just because you can see beauty and heartbbreak in things that might be uncomfortable for other people doesn't make you anything but someone who SEES. Really sees the world and what surrounds her.

I'm one of those people too, who like pretty things but for me and my writing... however much I've wanted to write about pretty and wanted happy romantic comedy endings, I always end up writing about ugly and sad and gross and then worry about whether people are going to think I'm a freak for writing about a drunk taking a shit in a box. So I guess you and I have the opposite problem.

When I read your blog, I thought about the famous photograph of the Vietnam War Excecution. The photograher was simply showing what he was seeing... and what an amazing reflection of human behavior. Whether ugly or beatuiful we want to see what you see Darcy... because you have such a unique point of view!
I want to see this from you. I know it is there... just let it flow!

<3