burn out?

Take a photo workshop doing photography that is different from the type that you getting burnt out on. Back in the 90's I had a part-time photo business doing corporate/advertising work. As my client list grew I kept doing more and more of the same type of work, head shots, group shots of people getting promotions in the "company". It got to the point that I didn't have to meter the scene, I just knew what the exposure was for both flash and ambient light. After several years of this it was no longer fun, so I took a break for a few weeks and went to the Smokies for some R&R where I stumbled across GSMIT, (Great Smokie Mountains Institute at Temont) where they had spring and fall nature photo workshops, I signed up for the Fall workshop with Willard Clay. It was exactly what I needed, a new "look" at photography.
Maybe what you need is to experience a new different "look" at photography.
 
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if you guys read the original post again, you might notice that i did not claim to be suffering from burn out...i just asked a question or 2...
i'm interested in the ways we might 'suffer' when creativity takes a walk and in the ways that creative people deal with it when it does happen.
 
I don't suffer from burn out, more total breakdown. This happens in work and my creative pursuits. I don't know what triggers it, but when it hits I don't leave the house unless I'm forced to, don't pick up a camera, don't work. It always passes and I slowly get back on the horse. Usually running helps.
In the good times, I am extremely productive.
 
I seem to get close to it quite often. Not so much burn out but becoming somewhat jaded with the whole photographic process. At this stage I usually launch myself off into a completely new photographic direction which is what I'm currently about to do ... something I have never done before. It seems to be the only way I can stop myself from becoming creatively stale ... the day that happens it's all over, I'll find another art form!
 
I would guess that if writer's get writer's block, photographers may be inclined to get something akin to that. Other arts and professions probably have people complaining of the same by another name. A kind of malaise I would think. While in most cases it likely passes with time there are surely examples of "one book writers" or "one score composers." Certainly be helpful if someone could figure out a quick sure cure.
 
Nothing wrong with putting the camera down for 6 months. Photography is a life long thing, no reason to rush it
 
I realize for the past few years I have been taking the same photos over and over again. Seems I have reached the very edges of creativity without much improvement. Maybe somewhere I have stopped thinking when I shoot and have been relying on autopilot so my output has remained the same.
 
Rayt said:
I realize for the past few years I have been taking the same photos over and over again. Seems I have reached the very edges of creativity without much improvement. Maybe somewhere I have stopped thinking when I shoot and have been relying on autopilot so my output has remained the same.
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feel much the same...
 
When I feel my photographic motivation is on the down side spending time with other creative people (I have friends more creative than me) not necessary photographers, talking abut their projects, their satisfaction or disappointment, their hopes helps me a lot to get the desire to "make" something.
robert
 
I think I get bored rather than burned out, when I have no subject matter I want to photograph. If I see something I want to shoot, I get inspired. If the inspiration is not there, I'm wasting time, film, or pixels--taking pictures because I just want to take pictures, but with no real interest in the subject.

At home in the winter with nothing to shoot I am apt to do a little gear selling and buying as a way of indulging my photography interest. And a little darkroom work.
 
A real "burn-out" is a serious condition and nothing that you could connect to some kind of temporary loss of motivation for photography.
A person that suffers from a genuine "burn-out" is deeply captured in a psychological depression and surely would not be able to answer here in this thread.

What I do know from myself is that sometimes (thankfully not often) I don't feel like shooting although I have the nicest gear at hand. This lack of motivation to go out and take pictures often is connected with:
- a stressful time in my job with an awful lot to do
- terrible weather outside (which we often have here in this part of Germany during late autumn and winter)
- no time to go anywhere nice (I must have shot everything around the place where I live. ;) )

But after a while, this goes away and as soon as some spare time and good light come together, I feel the urge to use one (or more) of my cams again.
What also can help is a change of format or medium.
 
I hope it's okay to bring up this old thread from over three months ago. "Burn out" is a subject with which I am very familiar.

My personal experience with burn out lasted about 8 years. It came about because the daily newspaper where I had worked for over 10 years was sold to one of the big syndicates and the new ownership meant new editors and management. Previously, the newspaper was profitable with a high circulation, it had respect in the industry and the staff (including yours truly) won awards annually for the quality of stories and photographs. This quickly changed to a corporate mentality with an emphasis on maximizing the bottom line and adherence to corporate policy over innovation. More experienced and better paid staff members were replaced and quality took a nose dive. Nothing unusual here--this story played out all over during the 1980s. I managed to last a few more years before being so completely fed up I quit and started a new career in a field totally unrelated to the news media or photography.

By the time I left photography as a career, I was so depressed by my experience I was unable to pick up a camera. It was around 8 years later that I finally dug out one of my cameras and took a few snapshots of the family pet and a holiday trip. For some reason, taking pictures clicked with me once again. My enthusiasm grew, I bought new equipment, I set up a darkroom and I began to study books of photos by the world's great photo artists. The Internet was also instrumental in connecting with photography again.

It's been about 18 years since I was "reborn" and my love and enthusiasm for photography continues to grow. I regret losing those 8 years but I'm making up for the lost time. I'm now retired from the workforce but I spend almost every day doing something photography related.
 
back alley said:
most creative types eventually burn out...some forever, some for short bits and some fall into and out of it fairly regularly...
as photographers, do you ever feel burnt?
how would you describe 'burn out' for yourself, from your own experience...
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I try to avoid burnout but not doing something once I begin to feel I must do it rather than feeling I want to do it. I have multiple interests, so I try to rotate them as I feel the joy draining out of one or another.

Martial arts, photography, writing, listening to music, driving long distances for no reason, designing and building vacuum tube amplifiers, working on my truck, refinishing and restoring vintage speakers, and back again. Sometimes I write code in support of one or all of the above. Well, except maybe the martial arts one.
 
bmattock said:
I try to avoid burnout but not doing something once I begin to feel I must do it rather than feeling I want to do it. . . .. .
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VERY true, but photography is always something I want to do, the more so when I go to/come back from Arles.

One thing that has never worked for me (not your advice, I know) is forcing myself to use cameras I don't like or care for, or find too much trouble to use. I know this from having tried to follow that advice: I always found it totally worthless. Why on earth would I piddle about with TLRs, for example? I care about the pictures, not the kit, so I pick the kit that will give me the pictures I want.

Cheers,

R.
 
when i was younger i did the mountain/landscape thing and had a great time. i did some sessions with local musicians, some live action band shots...i even did nudes for the local gay community...all good times.
but as i aged i have mostly just walked and photographed...
now the walking part is harder and harder and some days walking a block is a chore...i remember reading an article about ralph steiner, one of my faves, and he said that at 80 he mostly photographed in his garden as it was close.
it isn't really burnout of the soul for me but more of the body.
 
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