The Quiet Between Clicks

The Quiet Between Clicks

It’s been nearly a month since I picked up the camera with any real intention. Not out of protest or burnout—just that slow fade where work expands, routines tighten, and the creative bit of the brain quietly slips out for a smoke break.

This week, I finally took two photos. Not grand gestures or big ideas—just moments I noticed.

One was Kiel at sunset. The kind of scene that feels almost too cinematic to be real, where the light gets everything just right and the city pauses for you. A ferry moored to the left, high-rises catching fire in the last of the daylight, and a single figure standing at the edge of the harbour, phone raised. It’s an image full of symmetry and soft defiance—people moving, pausing, witnessing.

The other? A staircase. Shot from above, or below—it hardly matters. It’s just a set of tiled steps and banisters, but viewed head-on, it becomes something else. Lines, texture, quiet geometry. There’s no narrative, no location, no “moment”—just structure. And somehow, it still felt worth capturing.

On Creativity and Work

Lately, I’ve found myself drained not by lack of ideas, but by the sheer weight of “output.” Work demands precision, predictability, answers. And in doing that day in and day out, it becomes harder to shift into the messy, uncertain play that creativity thrives on.

I know I’m not alone in this. When your day job involves solving problems—especially complex ones—your brain tends to stay in that mode. Fixing. Optimizing. Checking. Creativity doesn’t work that way. It’s less about control and more about allowing for mess. And frankly, that can feel counterproductive when your day is built around avoiding mess in the first place.

So creativity becomes something you have to allow rather than chase. Something that arrives between tasks, in those strange in-between spaces. Like a quiet moment beside a harbour. Or a random staircase you happen to notice differently, just once.

Getting Back In

These two photos aren’t masterpieces. But they’re markers. A reminder that I’m still seeing. Still framing. Still paying attention. And maybe that’s enough, for now.

If you’re in a similar phase—overloaded, under-inspired, unsure where to begin—start with anything. Start with stairs. Start with a city glowing at sunset. The important thing is not whether it’s brilliant. It’s whether it’s yours.

And maybe that’s what creativity looks like right now—not a flood of ideas, but a trickle. A quiet return. A reminder that even when life feels like it’s all function and no form, there’s still room to notice something beautiful—and maybe even photograph it.

We don’t always need to be inspired. Sometimes we just need to start paying attention again.