How habits, expectations, and identity can quietly limit your creative vision.
Every photographer has a blind spot. Not the technical kind, but the psychological one.
It’s the angle you never explore. The subject you always avoid. The moment you overlook because you’ve decided, maybe unconsciously, that it’s not interesting, not beautiful, or not yours to tell.
This post is about those blind spots. And what happens when you start to see them.
✧ 1. Your Habits Can Become Ruts
Habits make shooting easier, but they also make you predictable. Always framing a certain way, gravitating toward the same light or color palette… it builds consistency, sure. But it can also become a trap.
Ask yourself:
- What subjects do I shoot over and over again?
- What do I always exclude from my frames, and why?
- Am I still curious when I shoot, or just comfortable?
Mini Challenge: Go through your last 100 images. What patterns do you see? What’s missing?
✧ 2. Expectations Limit Possibility
We often walk into a scene with a mental image already in place. “This is a good shot.” “This light isn’t working.” “That’s not what I came here to photograph.”
But the most interesting images often happen outside of expectations. In the detours, in the pauses, in the things you almost ignored.
Try this:
Next time you’re shooting, spend 15 minutes photographing things you would normally pass by. Don’t wait for them to impress you. Let them surprise you.
Your job is to notice what’s already there.
✧ 3. Your Identity Shapes What You Notice
We all photograph from a specific lens: shaped by our background, culture, biases, and lived experience. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s what gives our voice uniqueness. But it’s also worth examining.
Whose stories are you drawn to? Whose do you avoid? What environments make you feel like an outsider, and how does that affect how (or if) you shoot?
This is especially important in documentary or street photography, where power dynamics and ethics are always in play.
Questions to reflect on:
- What perspectives do I naturally align with, and why?
- Am I telling stories with care, or just collecting images?
- When do I feel the most “othered” as a photographer, and how does that show up in my work?
✧ 4. Fear Can Masquerade as Preference
Sometimes we avoid shooting in certain ways because they genuinely don’t resonate. But maybe we’re also a bit scared?
Scared of getting it wrong. Of being uncomfortable. Of not being good at it.
Avoiding street photography because it’s “not your thing”? Or because approaching strangers makes your chest tighten? Avoiding self-portraiture because it doesn’t interest you, or because it feels too vulnerable?
Reframe it: Instead of asking “Do I like this?”, ask “What am I afraid of here?”
Often, your blind spot is hiding right behind your fear.
✧ 5. You Might Be Mistaking “Style” for Stagnation
It’s easy to mistake repetition for personal style. But true style is what you’ve consciously chosen to do, after exploring what you could have done differently.
Style that’s grown without reflection becomes a visual script. One you start following without even realizing it.
Try this:
Choose a photo you’re proud of and recreate it in a completely different way. Different lens. Different light. Different crop. See what emerges when you rewrite your own rules.
Final Thought
Your blind spot is a frontier. It’s the space where growth lives. Where new questions wait. Where your next creative breakthrough might already be unfolding — just outside your field of vision.
MELISSA MARTINSEN 