More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition

The Velvet Handcuffs of Predictability38

When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator.

—Robert Adams

Few things are as intimidating to an artist as worrying about where and when their next creative insight may materialize or, worse yet, the fear that it may not come at all. Indeed, in my experience one of the defining traits of a successful artist is the ability to accept, live with, and continuously overcome this fear—to persist through the drudgery and occasional failure, holding on to little more than hope that ...