When you start out, you buy a camera because you are spotting stuff that makes interesting photo's and think "Oh, I'd like to photograph that"
When you get a camera... you start going out to 'find' stuff to take photo's of, so as to 'do photography'....
Result is, you start taking ever more less interesting, more contrived photo's that are ever more disappointing as your standards and expectations rise...
The lack of expected 'success' damps enthusiasm, and drives ever more effort to 'find' photo's and contrive opportunities, in a self defeating cycle....
Use the pause for though... there is no law that says just because you have a camera, you 'must' go use it... or I'd be serving multiple life sentences for all the camera's I have lying about that haven't taken a picture in however many months, or even years!!!!
Take a break; look at the photo's you have taken; compare the old and the new, since you first got a camera; ponder what is good about the ones you like, and not about the ones you dont.
Do something 'else' not 'fooh-tog-raffy'... you probably indulged lots of other interests until cameras started consuming your thoughts, time, money and effort... what did you do then?
Back up; what was it you did back before you got a camera, where you saw things that made you want to buy one?
What else, interests you? Why not go do that, and leave the camera behind!
I went through that cycle, a few times, getting over pretentious about the act, rather than the subject and forgetting WHY I was taking photo's to start with, in the en-devour to 'do fooh-tog-raffy'.... you probably HAVE to go through that, and it isn't until you review what you did, that you start looking at pictures and asking yourself "What on EARTH was I thinking of? WHY did i take 'that'?!" and realise you have hundreds or thousands of pictures that you took, pretty much just for the sake of playing cameras, and really aren't of much interest to any-one, let alone yourself!
In my own case, my father bought me an Olympus XA2 compact for my 11th birthday, when he emigrated to Canada, and insisted that when I went out to visit him, would want to take photo's of it all, so spent the last summer holiday in Scotland teaching me the basics. He was not far wrong, and that camera was constant companion in my travels through high-school; the annual trips out to see my old-man; going skiing, rafting, fishing all that sort of stuff; as well as back home, on school trips or going to parties, or events etc etc etc.
When I started Uni, he gave me his old Olympus OM10 SLR and a couple of lenses; suggesting I might want to 'do' fooh-tog-raffy' more seriously, and at uni would be doing so much interesting stuff to take pictures of... I don't think he was as close to the mark on that one, but, uni was pretty eventful, and I that was when I really started to get 'in' to it all.
But my first love was, and still is motorbikes; so a lot of what I found interesting enough to take photo's of was motorbike shows, rallies or races, I went to. Still is.... a-n-d, THAT is what I keep coming back to... the subject matter that interests me.
Looking back on almost forty years of photo's, though, what stands out among all the pictures I have taken, is that the ones I find most interesting, the ones that I actually enjoy looking at, are so often NOT the ones I took to 'do' fooh-tog-raff... they are the holiday snaps, the snap-shots of freinds or family, pictures I took of a new car or motorbike, now long white-goods! stuff like that. NOT contrived landscapes, or portraits or 'effect' photo's I took, really 'just' because I wanted to play cameras.
So, don't force it! strive to take photo's you will likely just get lots of contrived photo's, not 'interest'. Photography isn't an interest in itself, its a compliment to others. To take a picture you have to have a camera AND a subject; photography wont suply the subject, other interests will, so don't neglect them in the enthusiasm to do fooh-tog-raphy! Follow your other interests, and when oportunity arise, then remember the picture maker!
And if you haven't got anything 'interesting' to take pictures of? Don't sweat it! don't force it! Do something else! Let it come naturally. Remember the camera is your companion in doing and seeing interesting stuff, not your master making you do it!
And ultimately... entire reason for taking a photo should be for it to be LOOKED AT..... so if you cant find inspiration to find interesting stuff to take photo's of.. use the time to look at the ones you have taken already! No point taking more, if the ones you have already taken have no purpose, not being looked at! and that in itself can be inspiration, either to NOT take so many 'boring' photo's and or go take more 'interesting' ones.... but either way, you STILL dont 'have' to go take photo's just because you have a camera..... and you don't have to get motivated to 'do-fooh-tograffy', JUST to do interesting stuff! do that, interesting photo's will likely follow.
