You hear the word inspiration used a lot with artists, what inspires them to paint or draw, but it isn’t a word that photographers use a lot. We seem to have things that we love photographing and we just photograph them right? Though there has to be something behind that, something that drives you to photograph it. It can be called many things, inspiration, drive, passion, influence, motivation, incentive, probably many many more words that are used to basically describe the same thing.
So what is inspiration? I found a definition when I googled inspirations
the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative
Sounds easy, you will be stimulated, you will feel something, and then you will do something really creative. I wish it was that easy, and I know for a lot of people finding inspiration can be so hard.
There are always times when we have trouble finding that inspiration, how to go forward in what we are doing. Something that I have struggled with myself in my own art, and recently with my photography 
as well. I don’t have one of those photography businesses that is clearly defined and I need to constantly be challenging myself and doing new things, so I have to find inspiration.
There are many ways to find inspiration. Conceptual Photographer Brooke Shaden has some fantastic exercises I have seen her show people on how she finds inspiration. She has a whole routine, not something I have done, but perhaps I should. For her it is internal and comes from within. It can be an interesting approach to watch.
One of the things you can do is to do a brain storming thing as well. Start with one idea and then as quickly as you can write down as many words related to that, ideas that come from one another. Give yourself a time limit, like one minute, and see if something comes out of that.
For me, inspiration comes from around me, it comes from what I see. I have movies that I know if I watch I will see things that will make me want to create. The movies are not always great movies, but I find them so visually stimulating. I can remember the first time I saw The Matrix film. The idea of a world that is almost abandoned was so intense for me. The way the film was filmed, the colours, it was an incredibly inspirational movie to me.
I have found the same thing with places, or photographs of places. For people who follow my blog, they know that I find the town of Pripyat and the Chenobyl disaster inspirational, well not the actual disaster, but what has happened to the town since it was evacuated. The images I have seen of it have inspired many art pieces. Though, not so much of an influence now.
Though things like the above can influence some of my work, I know I see aspects of those in my architectural art images, but things that inspire us can change and lead us in different directions. So while the previous things have been very important to me, they are not so much now.
The artist Brooke Shaden was a massive inspiration to me, and my work changed totally after seeing her and what she does. Now my inspirations come from things that we were told about in art school, other artists. I spend lots of time at the art gallery, or on the internet looking at other artists. It isn’t about photographers who are working now, but also photographers from the past. Then there are the millions of paintings from the last 600 to 700 years to get inspiration from. I love the masters, they did some great stuff, we can learn so much from them, and also we can get so much inspiration from them.
Inspiration can be all around us, we just need to stop, take the time to look and see what there is. We can always learn new ways of doing things, whether that idea comes from a movie, another photographer or a painter who has been dead for 500 years. Open your eyes, open your mind to the inspirations all around you.