Hopefully these tips can help you no matter what your situation is. They are in no particular order, other than the order they came to me!

Plan ahead

I try to do more high energy tasks or plans when I have the most energy. Which seems obvious, but the hard part is planning it. It’s hard for me to know how I will be feeling ahead of time. But, for example, I know during my period I always feel worse so I try to schedule some low energy days for myself around that time each month. I also know that if I have travel scheduled, appointments, or any other big days, I need to give myself a couple of rest days afterwards.

On the days when I have energy for nothing I use it as a chance to watch artist interviews and talks. I save them into a playlist on YouTube whenever I come across interesting videos. That way, I can watch them when I don’t really have a lot of energy or to distract myself when I am in pain. It’s a much better alternative to doomscrolling. Afterwards, I feel inspired rather than more depressed!

On the average day, when I don’t have a lot of energy but I have some, I will just do what I can. I try to stick to a routine, which also includes my creative habits like morning pages in the morning and journaling at the end of the day. I try to do a little work on my creative projects every day if I have the energy, researching or editing photos I took when I had more energy. Of course, there are lots of non-creative things that I get distracted with too!

On the days when I am feeling more energetic I will take my camera out to shoot new work. Sometimes I like to paint when I have more energy. I will go into the city to get inspired by galleries, museums, or vintage shops. Another thing my husband and I like to do together when I have more energy is visit a new town or beach. There’s nothing like visiting a new place to boost your creativity.

Ask for help

This can be a hard one, especially if you, like me, prefer to be independent or you simply don’t have many people you can ask favours from. Ask for help with tasks that are standing between you and your creativity, for example, setting up a workspace, collecting art supplies from a nearby shop or helping you with other tasks that suck up a lot of your energy.

You might have a partner, friend, family member, or neighbour who would be happy to help you if they knew you needed some help. As a ‘thank you’, you could gift them something you have created!

Adjust your expectations

This is a huge one for me! As I have mentioned in other articles, I always want to create something perfectly, or I won’t bother creating it at all. I never want to settle for ‘good enough’. Which usually ends with me procrastinating and never actually creating the things I want to create.

I think now, more than ever, we need to learn to embrace being bad at things and to create for the sake of creating. We live in a world where AI can write without any grammatical errors and produce perfect images with just a prompt. But now your ‘errors’ or ‘mistakes’ are actually what make your work interesting.

Everything you create doesn’t have to be Pinterest-perfect or ready to be shown to the whole world. Create for you first and then, if you feel like it, share it. And, please, if you only remember one thing, remember that social media is not reality. Do not compare yourself, your art, or your life to anything you see online. Your battery may only charge 20% while someone else’s is 100%! This is something that I try to remind myself of any time I start to get that feeling of not being good enough.

Make getting started easier

Getting started is usually the hardest part and the part of the creative process that takes the most energy, for me at least. I find that once I have all my equipment ready, the task itself becomes much easier and I am less likely to procrastinate. I like to have my camera batteries charged and all my gear in a place that is easy to access. Then, when I have energy to take photos, I just have to pick up my camera.

I have my desk set up so that I can leave my camera and painting supplies out, which makes it easy to begin without having to take anything out from hard-to-reach places. My laptop and journals are also easy to grab when I want to use them.

In the past, I stored all my supplies and equipment in baskets that I could easily move from one place to another when we lived in a house with two floors. I could work at my desk or on the sofa or wherever I wanted. This also allowed me to work from my bed on days I was not able to get out of bed.

Aim for 10 minutes every day

Tell yourself that all you have to do is ten minutes of something creative. Then, once you get started, the momentum will probably keep you going for longer. At least, that’s how I usually am. Once I am in that flow state I can keep doing something for much longer.

And if I’m not feeling like doing any more after ten minutes, I stop and don’t feel guilty. I don’t want to get back to a place where creating becomes something that I dread. In the past, I got so burned out and unwell that even thinking about doing photography or art caused me more stress. Plus, ten minutes a day adds up over a week, month, year etc. The important things is to build that creative habit so that it eventually becomes part of your daily routine.

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What about you? Do you have any tips for being creative when you are low on energy? I would love to hear them in the comments!

I’m Audrey, an Irish photographer living in Barcelona. I’m on a mission to reclaim my creative life while living with chronic health issues. I share what I am learning about making art, finding inspiration, and building a creative routine even on low-energy days.

What is The Time Between about?

The Time Between is a personal photographic project about living with chronic health issues. It’s a personal diary of my days while learning to live with my new reality after my world shrank inward and the home became both a refuge and a cage. My days are now structured around rest, small routines, and waiting. Waiting for appointments, blood tests, results, relief from my symptoms. Waiting to get better. The photographs focus on intimate scenes: morning light falling across an unmade bed, food left unfinished, rain beaded on the window, evening sunlight creeping across the wall. These are my observations from a life that has almost come to a standstill.

How did it come about?

The project has shape-shifted quite a bit since the first photos. I began by simply taking random photos of my new life on my 35mm camera (Canon AE-1) to try to ease back into photography after taking a break due to my health issues. I thought it would be interesting to document this season of my life as I was also moving abroad for the first time. Otherwise, I didn’t think too much of it or put too much pressure on the images.

Then, when I arrived in Barcelona, I continued taking photos. I took a handful of self-portraits as well as photos of where we were living. At this stage, I was starting to think about turning the photos into a series, so I did some research and put more thought into the photos. I keep a journal for each personal project so I did the same for this one. I kept notes, ideas, and inspiration in it. I experimented with 120 film in an old Lubitel 166B. It is a Russian twin-lens reflex camera. It is a fun camera to play with, and I do enjoy pulling it out to use every now and then. The square-format image it produces is my favourite aspect ratio to work with; it’s challenging, but when it works, it works really well. However, I found that the waist level viewfinder really restricted me. So I went back to shooting 35mm.

At the very start, I did also experiment with some Fujifilm peel-apart film, FP-100C. I had been hoarding it for years because it is no longer being produced, and I wanted to use it on something special. These were actually some of the first photos I took. The problem is, the Polaroid Land camera I own is very restrictive and didn’t perform well in the situations I was shooting in.

When I was experimenting with the Lubitel, I shot black-and-white 120 film because the 35mm and the FP-100C I had been shooting were all colour. I wasn’t a huge fan of the black-and-white shots because they felt a little too sombre and melancholic for what I was trying to convey. I realised this project is about finding the joy that is still in my life, not about dwelling on the things that could drag me down. So I went back to shooting 35mm colour film. I think the colour images better convey the hope that I found in those small moments.

I had one issue while shooting 35mm film, and that was finishing the roll of film! I wrote about it here, but long story short, because I was taking so long to shoot a whole roll and for the roll to be processed, I decided to start shooting digital as well. Now I don’t have to wait until I have enough energy to shoot 36 shots before I can see the results. With film being so expensive, I put extra thought and care into every shot. For some people finishing a roll is not a big deal, but for me I deliberate over every single shot! The introduction of digital gave me more room to experiment and receive immediate feedback as I took the project in a new direction.

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Around this time, there was a turning point in the project. I noticed that I was shooting a lot more conceptually rather than literally. I was shooting how the moment felt, rather than trying to literally show the medication beside my bed, for example. I do think there is room in this series for both types of photography: photos that show the physical reality of living with ongoing health issues, and photos that show how it feels.

The future of the project?

I don’t like to think too far ahead in personal projects. I prefer to let them unfold how they will. I plan to keep shooting for this project until it comes to a natural end. It still feels like the early days, like I am just now discovering what works, despite taking the very early shots around a year ago. I have personal projects that I have been working on for years, one for over a decade, so I don’t feel the need to rush things. There are still some unknowns that I will figure out as time goes on. For now, I am shooting both 35mm and digital. I’m not sure if I will continue to shoot both or if I will eventually fully switch to one or the other. I don’t know if the final project will only include colour shots or if it will include some black-and-white photos too. I guess time will tell! Eventually, I would love to create a book or zine with the photos. And, of course, exhibit the work if the opportunity arises. That’s all still a long way off, though!

I would love to hear about your process for creating personal work, photography or otherwise. Or if you have any other thoughts please leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading!

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One question has come up over and over again in the 12 years since I first tried film photography: film or digital? I am of the age where I began taking photos with a digital camera. My family’s small red Fujifilm compact camera, to be specific. I have gone through periods of my life when I shot purely film. At that time, I was working on fine art projects and self-portraiture. I developed my own black-and-white film and printed my photographs in the darkroom. I also was fortunate enough to get the chance to do an artist residency in a darkroom.

There have been times when I mainly shot digital. Digital has been my choice for commercial work, as well as during times when I didn’t have the extra money to spend on film. Analog photography can get expensive. For me, analog and digital photography have had different purposes, for the most part. Then, about a year ago, I got pretty sick and for a while stopped taking photos altogether. I didn’t pick up a film or digital camera for months.

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When I finally started to have periods of feeling a little better, I tried taking photos again. Nothing elaborate. Just picking up my film camera whenever the light fell across the room a certain way or I saw a little vignette that inspired me. These photos have now turned into my project ‘The Time Between’. It is a project about living life while also dealing with chronic health issues. However, the periods of feeling good were short lived.

Shooting digital has become much more accessible for me recently. Now I can shoot when I feel up to it and either edit them straight away or whenever I feel like it. I felt resistant to picking up my digital camera at first because I thought that, to be a real artist, I had to do it a specific way (shooting only on film in my case) despite it being inconvenient. Or because it was inconvenient. But I finally came to the conclusion that maybe it was better to create something through the method I considered lesser (digital) than to create nothing through the method that I considered superior or deserved more artistic merit (film).

They say that the best camera is the one that you have with you, which is true. But I would also add that the best camera is the one that you can actually use. Whether that’s because of your skill level, the funds you have available to put towards photography, or the amount of energy you have to see the process through, like me.

So I’m just here to say: Whatever process you use to create your work is valid. Whether you shoot film or you shoot digital or both, like me, it is better to actually create something than to only think about creating the perfect thing. Use your phone if it is all you have!

I will continue to shoot both film and digital going forward as they both have their own specific strengths and uses in my practice. But, I am going to try to put less emphasis on the gear and put more emphasis on actually creating. That's not to say I don't think there's a place for using specific equipment for certain projects. I do think some work requires that. But for this project, I have decided that the work needs to be created and the gear must not stand in the way.

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What about you? Do you shoot exclusively on film or digital? Or do you shoot a mixture of the two? I would love to hear your thoughts!

This past year or so has been very rough at times. There have been days where I struggled to get out of bed, to shower or to find the motivation to do anything at all. I took a step back from photography altogether while I attended hospital appointments, followed functional medicine protocols and started medication. It felt like my life as I had known it had come to a standstill. I had been pushing through for years. Pushing myself despite knowing something was wrong with my body and knowing sooner or later it would completely give up.

The thought of even picking up a camera was too much. I had become so sick and burnt out that even the thought of doing photography was impossible. For months I just existed. Survived.

My husband and I decided that a big change was necessary and so we decided to move to his native Barcelona. The fresh start, combined with starting medication, meant I saw some improvement in my health. It was still very up and down, but I finally had times where I felt like creating again. I started noticing things again.

The Art of Seeing

The light was one of the first little things that inspired me. The morning light moving across the walls. The evening sunlight falling over the table. The shadows dancing on the floor. I watched time pass through the light coming in our bedroom window. One day rolled into another, bright morning sun turning into a hazy evening glow.

I saw the bags full of groceries spilling onto the floor. The prawns frying in the pan, sizzling and spitting. The dishes piled in the sink, marking another lunch eaten. Then dried up and put away. Fresh laundry hanging on the balcony. Life was moving on even though it felt like mine had ground to a halt.

I stared out the window, observing people going about their day. All of them the main character in their own lives. As the sun began to set and the lights blinked on in nearby buildings I would realise another day had passed.

I watched life happening around me because I didn’t have energy to participate. I noticed all the things that I had missed before because I was so busy. I was so busy with college and then work, with friends, family, travel, that somehow I had missed the little moments in life that were happening right in front of me. Whether I liked it or not, chronic illness forced me to slow down.

Now, I find myself taking notice of the way the bedding looks in the morning or a pair of shoes discarded on the floor. I see clothes thrown over a chair in a whole new light, literally and figuratively. As cliché as it sounds, I feel like I am seeing everything for the first time.

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Photographing Things in a New Light

Then, when I felt ready to pick up my camera again, I started to photograph the things that my eyes were finally opened to. The things that up until now I never really saw. When we really see things, we can photograph them. Interesting photography doesn’t have to be about finding extraordinary places or having incredibly beautiful subjects; it can be as simple as learning to see the things around you.

I remember in art class at school we had to sketch an object over and over again. From different angles and in different light. We had to truly study the object so that we could draw it properly. As a seventeen-year-old I got bored quickly with the same subject. I’m just beginning to appreciate that sometimes boredom and repetition are the secret sauce.

If my life hadn’t shrunk so significantly from chronic illness, I would never have noticed everything there is to photograph in one single, ordinary apartment. For months now I have been photographing within the same four walls and I continue to find new photographs. Capturing the changing light and the rhythms of daily life means there is always something new to photograph, even if it is only ever so slightly different from the day before.

The photos that I have taken on this journey have turned into my series, ‘The Time Between’. Chronic illness has changed my relationship with time and my surroundings. When my health improves, I know my life will pick up the pace again, and maybe I won’t have the same ability to notice the things I do now. Chronic illness has given me a unique opportunity to see the world in a different way even if I would not necessarily have chosen this.

I plan to share more thoughts and photos from this project so if you would like to know more, please subscribe. Hopefully I can inspire you to slow down just enough to notice the small moments in your own life.

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All the photos in this article were shot on Agfa Vista Plus 200 (expired) with the Canon AE-1.

Curate your life. Curate your life so that every day you wear your favourite clothes, drink from your favourite mug, write with your favourite pen. In fact it was a pen that sparked this thought in the beginning. I have a beautiful vintage fountain pen that is engraved with the name and wedding date of a family member that has passed. The pen was as new, still in its original box and unlikely ever inked, over 60 years later. The pen would have likely ended in the landfill in its original padded box had another family member not saved it when the house was being cleared out. The pen was then given to me when my fountain pen obsession began. Since then I have used it several times every week. I have re-inked it countless times and thought about its original owner almost every time I have done so.

And yes, maybe the pen will eventually wear out, get lost or get broken. But isn’t that better than going to the landfill in its original as-new box without having been used or loved? This pen may very well outlive me, just as it outlived its original owner. It will hopefully be used and loved for a very long time. It will hopefully have the chance to write many more to-do lists, morning pages and articles like this one. Yes, I used it to write the first draft of this post.

Also, I believe if you’ve spent your hard-earned money on something (or someone else has for you) then you should use it! Why buy something nice for yourself and then never allow yourself to use it? If you give someone a gift you would want them to use it, not push it to the back of their cupboard. So, I try to apply that logic to myself now, speaking as the girl who hoarded the cute notebooks and stickers because I was scared to waste them! Especially when the item is passed down or was a gift from someone else, I feel that it is even more special to use the item every day. I find myself thinking of that person every time I use an item that was gifted or passed down to me.

I try to use my favourite things regularly. And if they do get lost, broken or worn out? Then I have a chance to find new favourite things. And no, I’m not an extreme minimalist with just one pen. Maybe not even a minimalist by some people’s standards because I currently own four fountain pens. I love each of them equally but for different reasons.

Of course, there are some exceptions, I understand that. Depending on the job you work or the season of life you are in, wearing your favourite items of clothing may not be possible on a daily basis. But for most of us we can incorporate this philosophy in some way into our daily lives.

Since dealing with health issues my life has shrank in many ways but allowing myself to use my favourite things has been one of the ways that I have been able to find little moments of joy. Sometimes we feel we have to buy coffee at the trendy cafe or buy a whole new wardrobe to feel good about ourselves. Lately, with limited energy and income, I realised that it actually feels better to make coffee at home with my Chemex and to repeat my favourite outfits. Does that mean I will never buy coffee out again or purchase new clothes? Of course not! But I am definitely more mindful now.

Here are five things that are helping me reconnect with creativity:

Morning Pages

Morning Pages have been part of my daily routine for the past year since I first read The Artist’s Way. Morning Pages are one of the tools that Julia Cameron says are non-negotiable in her 12-week creative recovery course, The Artist’s Way. So what are they? They are a daily practice of three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing first thing in the morning. While I haven’t always been 100% consistent with them, or always do them first thing in the morning, I always find it worthwhile when I do make the time to write my pages. I come up with some of my best ideas and work out the details of others. Something about the stream-of-consciousness style really helps me come up with new ideas and expand on ideas I already have bouncing around my head.

Researching and learning

I like to dive down rabbit holes and find artists I didn’t know about before and research their work in depth. Finding out who inspired them and then who inspired them. Without having to even leave my house I can read articles, interviews and books, watch recordings of artist talks, listen to podcast episodes, look at photos of work installed in galleries. This is really helpful for me, as I don’t always have the energy to go to a gallery or event in person. The project that I am working on right now is about my experience living with ongoing health issues and recovering from a creative block. I am researching artists and photographers who have created work around these topics and have found some really interesting projects (please pop any recommendations in the comments!).

I have a journal where I keep track of my research and make notes on the work of the artists and photographers who inspire me. Keeping a journal alongside my project was something I was introduced to while completing my BA in Photography. While taking notes during research can feel a bit time-consuming, I know that I won’t remember everything if I don’t write it down. My journals are super messy and not intended for others to see but it helps me to keep all of my research and inspiration for a specific project in one place. Flipping through old journals from previous projects is fun and also great for inspiration in the future. They don’t need to be super aesthetic and Pinterest-perfect unless you enjoy that!

Flipping through physical books and magazines

Instead of always heading straight to Pinterest I have tried to find other sources for visual inspiration. I have been using photo books, cookery books, coffee table books and magazines to get inspired. If you are like me you probably buy books and after flipping through them a few times, you forget they even exist. You probably already have a bunch of books and magazines in your home that rarely get touched. If not head to your parent’s house, grandparents’ house, or a charity shop, and you are sure to find stacks of National Geographic, Homes & Gardens, or other magazines. You will also likely find lots and lots of books on just about every topic from cooking to history and very random hobbies. You can also check out your local library!

Trying other mediums (outside of photography)

I have been dipping my toe into some other mediums. I have been sketching and drawing again as well as trying out the gouache paints I bought months ago. This week for my Artist Date, another one of Julia Cameron’s tools, I followed this tutorial for a lobster painting by de la crem studio! It was so much fun and once I finished that painting I went to do 2 or 3 others! Simply mixing paints to create different colours has also been really fun and inspiring. It doesn’t have to be really intricate artwork and you don’t have to be good at it for you to enjoy it. In fact, it has been really helpful for me to let some of my perfectionism go by creating “bad art”. says the way to defeat perfectionism is to “Make shitty art. Do it every day.”

Forcing myself to just begin

Sometimes you just have to force yourself to begin, there’s no other way around it. The times when I have forced myself to pull out my camera and just take some photos are some of the times when I have ended up taking photos that have gone on to become some of my favourites. Kind of like when you’re trying to finish a roll of film and force yourself to find something to photograph!

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I’m still figuring out what a creative life will look like for me. Some days it’s making photographs, some days it’s just writing Morning Pages, and other days it’s simply paying attention and being grateful for little moments of joy. But slowly, little by little, I feel like I’m finding my way back to creating again.

If you would like to hear more about the story behind my creative pause, and now my return to photography, you can read it here.

It was never my intention to put down my camera and never come back to it. Life happened and then some more life happened.

My story

To give you a brief backstory: It was 2018, I had that pre-graduation anxiety wondering how I was going to translate my BA into the real world. Then less than two years later, just as I was somewhat getting my commercial photography career started, the whole world turned into the post-apocalyptic nightmare of Covid lockdowns. That was then followed by two or three years of big personal changes.

Then we arrived in Spring of 2025. I got so sick so quickly that I found it hard to see a way through. I had been avoiding dealing with some health issues until I couldn’t ignore them anymore. My life as it had been, ground to a complete halt.

The following months passed in a blur of appointments, tests, scans, protocols, and the hope that once I could start medication it would fix everything. I didn’t touch my camera for months. In fact, since March of 2025 I have still only used my camera a handful of times.

Picking up my camera again

For almost six months, it was genuinely anxiety-inducing to even think about photography. Since then, I have been quietly trying to re-ignite my love for my favourite medium to create with. Slowly, I took a few photos, months apart, documenting this season in my life. It has given me a purpose on some of the toughest weeks.

For now, I’m calling the project ‘The Time Between’. This is my return to photography and hopefully the start of something I will be very proud of in the future.

If you are interested in hearing more about this project or anything else I have to share please subscribe. Also, I would love to chat so feel free ask any questions you have in the comments.

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