[Naturenut]

I was just wondering if any of you folk ever get burnt out from photography and 'hang your boots up', so to speak, for an indefinite period..

We all go through phases & different hobbies through life, although I do wonder is photography one of those things you just keep doing until you are at a ripe old age.

I literally hung up my boots 3 years ago from a former hobby....horses. I was involved with horses in some capacity from the time I was 5 years old. We're talking more than 35+ years folks....and not for one second did I ever think I'd be out of them. But here I am completely disconnected from the horseworld.

What's my point? Well I think burn out does occur for everyone at some point no matter how much passion they have for a hobby. Personally, photography now owns the passion and enthusiasm I once had for equines. If I can get 30 years of love and enjoyment out of photography like I did with horses, I'll be tickled pink! I'll be old, but I'll be tickled nonetheless. ;-)

[flippedgazelle]

Absolutely.

There are times when I really only see photography as capturing something that's already created-merely a representation of what's already there created from a finely tuned machine.

I often feel like it doesn't contribute much to my "artistic" side, especially subject matter. It's one of my biggest hobbies and I struggle with it almost weekly!

It begs the question: are we really artists if we're taking pictures of what's already there?

I agree with this completely. My photography - and most photos I see by other people - is more craft than art. /end digression

Yeah, I burn out for a week (or 2 or 3), but then the fire re-ignites and blast off!

[RioRico]

My photography - and most photos I see by other people - is more craft than art.

That's because craft, not art, is prized here and in much of the consumer photo world. In prior threads I've mentioned a project by an art Museum in Brooklyn, whose website solicited photos contributed by the general public, who then voted on their favorites. Nothing resembling cutting-edge art ranked high. What people submitted, and wanted, were what looked like magazine photos. That's not wrong, just sterile.

I find myself treading that line with my Pentax gear, more than when my main tools were good and not-so-good Sony P&S's. Frames shot at 480x640 and 912x1216 and even 1944x2650 are more inviting (demanding?) of creative manipulation than are 4688x3124 RAW files -- to me, anyway. Maybe part of it is that smaller pics are much faster to work on, much faster to apply tricks and distortions and all sorts of creative mucking about. And I can concentrate on form and shape rather than exquisite detail.

So I sometimes get PP burnout. I cut way back on the NightShot IR photos I shot because of the work necessary to render them satisfactorily viewable. Exploring various types of spectrum-slicing is fun; producing a slew of heavily-PP'd images, ain't. Or I'll mount odd lenses on the K20D and shoot in odd light and get strange exposures that are easily fixed in PentaxPhotoLab -- but that's tedious too. Makes me want to spend time talking about it rather than doing it.

Re: talking about it -- I just read this piece about MF cams wherein the author makes a telling point. Many argue the merits of various cameras by producing tech specs and analyses, as though such proves the superiority of whatever. Missing from these arguments is, WHAT DO THE PRINTS LOOK LIKE? Images on a screen do NOT much look like prints matted, framed, hung, lit etc. A major appeal of smelly old chemical darkroom processing was the actual production of actual prints that were actually shown -- or maybe destroyed, if prudence dictated. I never got burnt out on darkroom work.

[levelred]

I usually get a little depressed after I have a bad shoot. It puts me in a funk. But I usually look at my older better photos and realize I can do it again.

[tokyoso]

I'm sure a lot of us have felt this. You have to pull the camera away from your eye at some point. I've felt this many times before.. well, maybe not the hiking part.. or the tent pitching part. As a street shooter, putting down the camera at the end of the day is almost joy. You can finally witness life as it walks.

Not being able to afford your hobby does not count as burning out. But, I appreciate the replies and feel for you guys that strictly shoot film.

I admire the folks who shoot film, too. I took a photog class long time ago, and that time it was strictly dark room work and maybe 20% taking pictures, for as much as I could remember, and by then I decided photography isn't my major.

Photography is probably one of the cheaper hobbies, so affordability shouldn't be an excuse. I see that some very cool and widely appreciated pictures on flickr were taken with P&S.

As for being burned out, I really don't see myself walking around and take pictures all day like you and some of the great photogs here do. Sometimes you want to be in the action, and let other people take pictures of me, espeically when they take better pictures. :smile:

[Votesh]

I usually get a little depressed after I have a bad shoot. It puts me in a funk. But I usually look at my older better photos and realize I can do it again.

I'm the same way. That's one of the reasons I'm so interested in film photography again. I go through, at a minimum, 3 rolls before having anything developed. Those 3 rolls usually take a couple of weeks to shoot. So when I get the negatives back with a cd of the images I'm at least a couple of weeks removed from taking them, and I'm bound to have had a good day of shooting while taking them, so I can focus on those good pictures. It disconnects me from a bad day's work.

With digital I can look at the picture immediately, and even if I just have a few pictures in a row that just aren't right it puts me in an off mood. I've had days where I can clearly see an image in my mind's of how I want a scene in front of me to look as a picture, but I can't capture it just right. At that point I might just put my camera back in my bag and head home. With film I can take a boat load of terrible pictures, but I won't get discouraged because I can't see how bad they are at the moment .

Of course I also have days that I go out with a DSLR and have trouble taking a picture I don't like, and it's purely encouraging.

[Ratmagiclady]

Hee, I've had periods when I got a bit 'disenchanted with the surface of things,' I suppose. And a time when, I think, with some early career ambitions finally pretty badly-frustrated. I didn't much want to touch a camera. (Guess that part didn't last long, as I think of it, but some of that appears fairly often,) And lots and lots of times when I just couldn't shoot as much as I otherwise would have wanted to, but was still 'seeing.'

I've sort of been letting myself have a fallow period right now: digital's a new medium to me, (Heck, my K20d is the first SLR I've ever *owned* that was designed after the early 80s. ) ...with all kinds of computer things I've been struggling to assimilate, not to mention organize, and just plain get the equipment together, well, 'burnt out' may be the word for that. But we're getting there.

Since most of my subjects involve *people,* I try not to force it if I, say, lose interest in a town or don't feel too social. Shoot just enough to not get shutter-shy, sometimes encourage myself a bit when I'm reluctant, ....once I start hearing the shutter, it all tends to light right back up when it's time.

[johnmflores]

I've done a fair amount of solo traveling. On those trips, a camera has been my constant companion. It gave me something to do during long stretches alone, a purpose of sorts, and at once a shield, a crutch and a looking glass with which to venture out into the big, scary world. Other hobbies have come, peaked, and diminished over time, but photography is still here, 20+ years and going strong.

So I won't say that I've ever felt burned out. I took ~30k photos last year, and was still snapping away eagerly on December 31. I have hit plateaus though, periods of sameness and "I've done this before" that takes some of the spark away. Sometimes an improvement in the craft of photography helps push on towards the next time. Sometimes a personal challenge to see differently does the trick. Sometimes a new venue does it. New gear does it too, but to a much smaller degree, unless that new gear opens up previously unknown territory.

My $.02...

[Ratmagiclady]

Sometimes a new venue does it. New gear does it too, but to a much smaller degree, unless that new gear opens up previously unknown territory.

My $.02...

Often, for me, really. One can get very used to familiar surroundings, and one may be seeing in sort of mental shorthand.

New toys (or, say, stuff you haven't used in a while) can sometimes be of use. I've been saving the idea of an ultrawide for if I get really jaded, once the basic kit's together. Normally, I use a pretty limited selection of moderate focal lengths: literally taking a different perspective is therefore something that really can open things up for me: I do get set in my ways, and I'm usually happy there, but hey. Or if you normally use a broad variety of lenses, limit yourself to one for a day or something.

[melander]

I have a natural break during the winter, (check the winter thread in this forum section), and I get all excited when the snow melts and everything blooms again.

[MJB DIGITAL]

I've been bustin' ass for weeks straight to get ready for an investor to sink some change into my biz.

Today I'm feeling the burnout.

There is beer in the fridge. I think I can take a bit of time off.

[mysticcowboy]

As others have said there are always ebbs and flows.

A question to ask yourself is whether photography is a true passion for you or if you just thought that it's a cool idea. Lots of people try things only to find that it wasn't what they thought it would be. Or maybe it's the learning of something new that is exciting and once it's not new anymore it loses its luster. A gut check of motivations can be helpful.

Another possibility is that you get carried in a direction that is away from what got you started in the first place. I've seen people try to turn a pleasurable hobby into a profession, get burned out and forget what is was that so excited them in the first place. I did that with writing for a while and needed a long break to remember why I enjoyed writing in the first place.

michael mckee
My Port Townsend – A City in Photographs – 365

[jct us101]

I definitely get burned out from taking photos all the time. Especially because the things that I want to take photos of are so limited, I eventually even get tired of them. It all usually will come back to me though.

[Tuner571]

I think everyone gets burnt out every once and a while. Normally, this is why I like winter; during these cold months I tend to take a break from photography and when spring rolls around I am fresh and energzied for the upcoming warm weather.

Cory

[Bramela]

Yes, I have been there. I think a short break to" recharge the batteries" can be very worthwhile.
Feeling refreshed it shows up in the shots you take, IMHO.