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Like many artists, I find creativity to be a consistently inconsistent presence in my life. It waxes and wanes with some sort of odd schedule. Arriving unannounced at times. Nowhere to be found at others. That can be frustrating for sure, especially if you depend on it financially. It has taken a great deal of time, but I have come to embrace it and accept it for what it is. Like a long-term friend who you rarely hear from, but when you do, you just pick up where you left off, and all is good.

Much has been written about the subject of creativity for artists, musicians, and writers. It would be exhausting to expand upon what has already been said elsewhere. It’s all helpful and informative, for sure. It’s even consoling at times when that old friend's creativity has been absent a bit too long for comfort. My experience is not much different from all of those who have struggled with its comings and goings.

That all said, over the past three years, I have participated in a unique project that I have found to be particularly helpful in stimulating creativity. It’s my genuine hope that other artists may benefit from it, too.

In early 2021, an artist colleague of mine, Takeyce Walter, shared a series of paintings she was creating each day during the month of February. Small pastels of scenes from across the Adirondack region of New York. She called it Creative February and it was fascinating to watch it unfold across the month. She had been doing this annual project for several years. When January the following year arrived, and I began seeing her preparations, I wondered how I could do such a project with photography. My long-term marriage had recently ended in divorce, so I was at a pretty low point at the time, and my photography felt like it was falling apart. My focus seemed missing, and my inspiration felt like it had never even existed. Simply put, my creativity was gone and I was struggling to see a way out. I decided to give the project a try and committed myself to giving it my best through February 2022 on the chance it may help me with my struggles.

Before starting I decided I would add some constraints so that the images might become cohesive and my creativity would be pushed. It sounds self-punishing, but I suspected some constraints might be helpful. This is especially so since I had hoped to create some sort of body of work from the month that made sense. After some thought, I decided to limit myself to 1x1 black and white photographs of nature. An image a day taken from my surroundings, wherever I may be that month. To make it even more challenging, they were to all be taken with my iPhone 13 Pro and processed on whatever apps were available for that smartphone. Definitely not my primary camera. I had not used this phone camera for serious photography, but I had enjoyed its free form ease of use in thinking through compositions.

The first week of this project was definitely rough. I struggled to find the time it seemed to demand of me. With each successive image that week I thought about stopping the project. It was creating more stress than I was willing to take on.

Once that first weekend arrived, however, I found myself getting more interested in the project. Creative ideas began to flow, and I began looking forward to each new day’s challenge. By the end of February, I actually wanted to keep going and felt like I had a collection of images that I was proud of!

I enjoyed the first Creative February project so much that I decided to give it a second try when February arrived again. That month was a real joy, especially since I was striving to avoid repetition and forced myself to photograph places I had not explored before. To my surprise, the projects were helping pull me out of the creative slump I had been lingering in. What had started off as a chore had evolved into a productive flow of creativity.

When the third year arrived, I was hesitant to take on the challenge out of concern for being repetitive. I was not confident I would be able to avoid the issue with such a tight work schedule. I fretted that finding new subjects would be more demanding. Like the first year, it was a bumpy start, but as time set in, things began to flow as they had in previous years. As the third year was concluding, I began wondering how the images from the past three “Februaries” could be connected with each other in some sort of collection. To my surprise, some connections emerged. Excited by this discovery, I sent all eighty-six images through my printer and laid them out on my studio table. After an hour or so of sorting and shuffling, it was clear that four themes emerged. Ice, Trees, Flow, and Shore. To my amazement, they could all be arranged in couplets like opposing pages in an opened book. That came as a complete surprise because it was not something I had thought of as I was recording any of the photographs. This discovery was the genesis of my latest eBook, “Reflecting on February.”

It was a pleasure putting the book together since it allowed me to review all the work and connect with it on a more meaningful basis. I did not want the book to be merely pictures, however, because I felt there were some lessons I had learned over the course of the past three years. Maybe my experience could help others in their own creative journey? Maybe my words could help someone who is also struggling with pain? Past all the image couplets, “Reflecting on February” also presents some short essays addressing these questions in the hope to be helpful to those in need.

You can buy James's ebook "Reflecting on February" from his website

Do you have a project that you're working on or have completed that you'd like to submit an article on? Please get in touch as we're always interested in new contributors.