I have gone through cycles of taking pictures every day, obsessively editing, posting my results and then going again. I start to gather momentum and then suddenly, I feel burnt out. I have no more creative ideas. I have no more energy to continue doing what I love. For the longest time I just thought ‘Oh, well I guess my ADD brain is just like that, guess I’ll come back to photography in a few months when I’m feeling better.’ Problem is, all the momentum I had gathered towards my goals and the life that I want to live (of which photography is a key component), has gone. Then as soon as that creative energy comes back around, newly restored, it pours out and I feel a deep need to do as much as I possibly can to make up lost ground until I once again find myself worn out and the cycle continues. This is an awful cycle to find yourself in, and I know I’m not the only one who has suffered it. I think I’ve found some strategies to break the cycle.
De-load
As an avid gym goer, I like to frame a lot of things based around workout and exercise philosophy. Anyway, in the gym, we go through periods of intense exercise followed by a period of de-loading. Over time, not only your muscles and connective tissue, but also your central nervous system builds up fatigue, and when you push things too far, this is when the majority of acute and chronic injury occurs. To avoid this, after a set amount of time, which differs from individual to individual, you take a de-load phase. During this period, you pull back the intensity, the volume and take more rest days in order to recover fully before working back into another building phase. I believe this same philosophy applies to photography, and indeed any other endeavour that you pour your effort into. We must as photographers allow ourselves periods of de-loading. This doesn’t mean stop taking pictures for a while, it just means to pull back the intensity. Pull back the long nights of editing. Pull back on the 40,000+ step days. Maybe it means to just go for a walk before work a few days a week with your camera, but not necessarily with the goal of taking your best ever work. Maybe it means to just import your RAWs onto a drive somewhere, save them in a folder and forget about them, you can go through and edit them another time. Maybe it means to stop consuming media related to photography for a while. Maybe it’s all of these things. Whatever a de-load period looks like for you, I truly believe it’s important that we schedule it. Then once that period is over, trust me - you’ll be itching to get back out there with an intense focus that can only be maintained until your next de-load.
Be sensitive to your own rhythms
This ties in with the previous strategy, but I think it’s really important to be sensitive to your own rhythms. What do I mean by that? Well, the concept of being sensitive to your own rhythms can apply to many aspects of your life, from daily routines, to personal growth and to your creative process. Let’s start with our biological rhythms. It can be super beneficial to be aware of and track your circadian rhythms - this is your natural sleep-wake cycle. Being in tune with your circadian rhythm can significantly improve your overall well-being and productivity. For example, if you are naturally a morning person, schedule your deep work tasks for the morning. This could mean that you save your photo editing for the morning when you are most alert and can most efficiently use your energy. We also have creative rhythms. Creativity comes in ebbs and flows. It can be really useful to take note of when you are feeling your most creative and adjust your plans accordingly. It seems obvious, but maybe you should do your shooting when that creative energy is flowing through you, and do your administrative tasks during your lows.
Something that I have found really useful for noticing my own rhythms has been to keep a photography journal. I write down a brief summary of a photo walk - if I went shooting that day, check in with myself, write about future photography plans and whatever other random thought enters my head. This has been really useful when identifying what’s going on with me and I can quickly recognise when it’s time to step back and de-load based off of the contents of my journal. When I’m writing playfully, full of ideas, writing about the interesting things I noticed during my shoot, or any fun interactions I observed that day - I know that I’m primed for intense street photography work, but when my journal is full of uninspiring thoughts, boring entries and just seems like I’m going through the motions, I know that it’s probably time to de-load and allow myself to recharge (again de-load doesn’t mean to stop shooting, it just means less intensity).
Define small victories for you
Something that I think greatly contributes to burnout is when we don’t get the result that we expected. It’s super easy to get swept up in the world of social media, which is a really difficult place to navigate while still holding onto your mental wellbeing. I know that I have burned myself out chasing likes and engagement in the past. It’s nice when we put in all this effort to this pursuit that we truly love doing, share it with the world and get a huge positive response. Until it’s not. Suddenly the pursuit has changed from the process of doing the thing that we love, to the result of our labour. Now the only way you can be satisfied is if your most recent post has reached X amount of likes or whatever metric you become attached to. It’s such an easy trap to fall into. You can even scale this same trap to a day of shooting. You head out with the intention of taking some great photos, the light is perfect and you’re sure that today will be a fruitful shoot, but as the day unravels you find that things just aren’t falling into place, and now suddenly you are chasing that moment that will turn the day around. It’s days like these back to back that have lead me to burnout. So how can we fix that?
It all comes back to process. For me, it’s been super helpful to define some small victories for myself, NOT what would be victories for other people. I write down these small victories in my photography journal. It might be something super simple, like find a new shopfront that I find interesting in some area or another, or spot a unique interaction between strangers, or capture an unexpected moment that tells a story. Even if I wasn’t able to capture any of the above, the fact that I noticed it is a victory! These small victories are personal milestones that keep me grounded in the joy of the process rather than the outcome. I make sure to write down each one in my photography journal. Ask yourself: What small victories can you celebrate in your photography?
Conclusion
Photography is a journey, not a race. By allowing yourself to de-load, staying in tune with your natural rhythms, and defining personal milestones, you can maintain a healthy balance and continue to grow as a photographer. The key factor in whether or not this is something you’ll be able to maintain long term lies in the joy it brings you, not in the external validation of others. Keep capturing those moments, celebrate your small victories and most importantly, enjoy every step of the way. Hope someone out there finds this helpful.
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