Ok, I could have said " ham sandwiches", or "Vegemite on toast", but after living in Brazil for five years ( where I fell in love with photography) beans and rice made sense to me, and if you keep reading, I hope it will make sense to you.

When we first fall in love with photography, we are like a teenage girl with her first crush. It is all we think and breathe. Our camera becomes a fashion accessory and, when we don't lug the big-girl camera around, we use the mobile. It borders on obsession for most of us. Our creative heart, which we have mostly ignored, loves it. And this whirlwind romance between our photography and our creative spirit flutters along for a few years.

Then, our creations start to feel a little flat. They have lost their sparkle, and we feel a little "meh". We struggle to get back that feeling of wow and wonder but mostly feel like we are missing the mark. This here, this blah, is not where we thought we would be after 3, 4, or  5 years of practising our craft.

But what we don't realise is that we are feeding our creativity beans and rice. We are serving our creative heart the same meal every single day. It's photography, with photography, and a dash of photography on the side. Seriously, think about the other creative projects you have completed over the last few years. And so our poor creative heart is bored and uninspired. She is flat out sick of eating the same food every day and desires to explore a new taste.

So, I encourage you to add some spices or new flavours to your beans and rice. Add some garlic, onion and a dash of chilli. Write a big list of all the things that inspire you and start adding them to your every day. It can be simple things like lighting candles or a bunch of flowers on your desk ( your creative heart is going to love looking at those flowers while you edit). It can be big like a trip to a bucket list vacation or seeing your favourite exhibition at the museum. It can be long walks on the beach or short strolls through a local market. Whatever floats your boat, start doing it.  And what you will find, what I saw, is that your creative heart begins to smile again. She is, like you, not ready to give up on this romance with photography, but she needs to see, to feel, to listen, and create other things as well.

NEED SOME HELP WITH YOUR INSPIRATION LIST?