Regrettably the first thing I do every morning is look at my phone.
There was a time when I used to notice how distracted I would be for the entire day if I gazed at my phone as soon as I woke up.
Just 15 to 20 minutes could throw my concentration off entirely.
Now I hardly notice the lack of focus as this morning routine has become so natural again over the quarantine.
This is a problem because all of my best breakthroughs have come from boredom, early morning writing, or late night editing.
This is something about monotony that inspires the shit out of my brain.
Rewind to about 7 years ago I was in college doing anything I could for a few extra dollars.
I got rid of tree stumps in peoples yards, dug holes where machines couldn’t fit, and fabricated marble counter tops.
All of these things took a lot of time and to the hum of a machine some of my best photo ideas were born.
Each day after work in the summers I had 2 hours of sunlight left to shoot with and wether I had friends to model or not I’d go and take photos.
At the time I couldn’t wait to stop doing manual labor but looking back I miss how full mind mind felt after a long day of work.
I still get the same feeling if I have a long hard day of work.
It doesn’t drain me it fills me with excitement.
I can’t say this technique will work for everyone but for myself doing something monotonous like folding clothes, or a long day of yard work seems to fill me with a flood of ideas.
In direct contrast looking for inspiration online seems to jumble my thoughts until there is nothing left but scrambled eggs.
I envy people who can make sense of all that information but for myself it just leads to a dizziness I can’t undo to the next day.
Lastly I find a lot of my photo ideas come from just taking photos.
Walking in itself is a long boring process but it’s one of my favorite things to do.
This is probably why none of my photo composition ideas come from biking, it’s too much information all at once.
I’ve also haven’t been posting much on instagram and over the next few weeks I’m going to try to be more present during my mornings.
Less phone time equals more focus.
Hope this helps,
Atticus.
