We all experience times when our photography experience becomes flat and uninspiring, and our creative spark has all but died out.

We might not be getting out with our camera as often as we would like due to adverse weather conditions, family, work or life commitments, or simply because we have lost the motivation to go out regularly with our camera.

We may feel that we have reached a plateau in our photography, that we are not improving and that our photographs are ‘no good’.

We may simply have lost the motivation to take photographs and are finding it hard to find that motivation again.

If this applies to you, if you feel that the creative spark is missing in your life, here are 4 tips you might like to try that may help to re-ignite your creative spark, re-invigorate your photography and help you to move forward again.

These are all tips that I have tried for myself and found to be successful.

#1 Play

If the reason for your lack of motivation is that you don’t believe you are improving at photography, then maybe you need to take the focus off the results and take the pressure off yourself to achieve good results.

Play, practice, have fun. Don’t worry about the result.

Play with camera settings, focal length, composition.

Try different apertures and shutter speeds. Look for something new, an unexplored area or subject.

I took my camera with me on a winter walk in the countryside. I took a photo of anything that attracted my interest. Doing so has given me many memories of an enjoyable day out.

Experiment, make discoveries.

The word play is not usually associated with photography yet play can be an important part of your photography journey, and a good way to let your creative-self run free.

When we take our camera out to play, we are letting go of expectations; we are experimenting, experiencing the fun of each moment and enjoying our pastime with no pressure to achieve or succeed.

Play is freeing, allowing us to make mistakes, to learn by doing, to discover new things and to follow our own interests and desires.

When you allow yourself to play with your camera the process becomes more important than the result and the discoveries you make beat anything you’ll read in your camera manual or on any photography tutorial.

You’ll learn through experience and have fun while doing so and that is what photography should be about.

I often experiment by taking photos of the everyday landscape I see around me. They might not be photos worth sharing but I do enjoy trying new things in photography.

#2 Fall in love with your own location

We might feel that we need to travel to do good photography, but nothing could be further from the truth. While travelling to a new location will give us a fresh perspective and invigorate our photography, for most of us constant travel is not a possibility.

Our own locality can provide all we need in terms of photography opportunities if we change our mind set and begin to explore our surroundings more deeply to discover what is there to be found.

This can be especially true if we have a local place where we can be close to nature.

My closest photography location is a local park and woodland. I have often gone there when I was lacking in motivation and come away feeling renewed and excited by new photographic opportunities I found there.

#3 Shake it up

Try a new style, new genre, new location…

If you primarily shoot in a wide landscape, try some woodland photography.

If you are a rural photographer, try an urban landscape or do some street photography.

If you tend to do your photography inland, take a trip to the coast, if that is possible.

Hop on a bus, train or take a car trip to another town or village and see what you find there.

Or keep it simple and just stay close to home and photograph something that you wouldn’t normally consider photographing.

#4 Be cruel to be kind

Don’t dwell on the failures, let them go or treat them as valuable learning opportunities.

Dwelling on your failures can lead to feelings of inferiority and a sense that you are not improving. When you begin to accept that you will have good photography days and bad photography days, and that not all photographs will be ‘keepers’, you will realise that the ‘failures’ are merely showing you how you need to improve, and it's ok to learn from them and let them go.

I took this with my phone camera as I walked past. Something about the gate drew my attention. This is hardly a keeper but I don't regret trying out the composition even though it was a failure.

I could return to the location, stand further back and wait for a red car or van to come along. That might provide some balance in the photograph.

Or I could scrap it!

If you are feeling flat and unmotivated by your photography I hope that at least one of these ideas will help you re-ignite your creative spark.

Why not give them a try.