It's been one of those weird weeks. I started it full of energy and excitement and I'm ending it feeling drained, uninspired and empty.

Countdown started really well; the first twelve days were a breeze to get shots for and I loved producing the video (though fighting with kdenlive wasn't always the most fun thing in the world). The last couple of days, though, I've felt like I was really stretching for ideas, pushing some artistic impulse within me further than it wanted to go. It became more about getting so many shots for the day than about capturing a mood, or a scene, or the play of light on on the surface of the sea. I stopped caring about the image within the frame and started measuring my success by how many frames I'd captured that I was at least partly happy with.

My ModelMayhem account was approved, thanks to a combination of the shots that I took of Sarah a couple of weeks back and the shots that I got at the Bert Stephani workshop in London. I don't know if I'll actually use it, though. The miserable, tired, self-doubting part of me that is now rearing its head wonders why a model would want to work with such a hack of a photographer.

And I know all this is nonsense; just the product of a tired mind that's had a long week of trying to squeeze as much out of every day as possible. I'll sleep some over the weekend and I'll go out into town without the pressure of having to get back for work and I'll find my creative juices starting to flow again.

But here, right now, in this head, sustained creativity is hard. And I wonder how I'm ever going to get to the point where I can do this long-term.