Burn out

Many times when I have to go to work. Get over it? When I win the lottery or get good enough to turn into a full time pro-tog then maybe. Until then I'll grit my teeth and keep earning the dosh to keep the roof over our heads.
 
I used to get this regularly when I was in sales. To get over it I resigned and became a full-time photographer :D
 
When I was working (I am now retired), I felt this way for years. It was made worse by a horrendous shift system meaning for three weeks out of four, I was up at 4am each morning and working outside in all weathers. However, the worst part was getting up and in to work. Once I arrived it was much easier to get into gear and the support of colleagues suffering the same helped tremendously.

Concentrate on the positives and you will cope.
 
I suppose any hobby can make you fed up sometimes. Maybe think of taking a break from it. What I wouldn't do is sell my gear until I've had a loooooong lay off. Photography is the sort of hobby that you can easily get back in to (if you still have the gear).
JohnyT
 
Either take a different tack with your photography to try and get the fun back into it or take a break for a while

1st option, get something small like a Fuji X100, X10 or X20, carry it with you and just pull it out of your jacket pocket when you want too.. its a world of difference going back to a small/lightweight/fixed focal length camera instead of lugging the full kit.

2nd option, new hobby time.. trout fishing season is here so maybe take up fly fishing? the skill also comes in handy for carp, taking one of the top on fly gear with a chum mixer fly you tied yourself is very rewarding, and even the rudd etc put up a good fight, of course the trout are great fun too with the added bonus that you can eat the catch.
Just dont sell your camera gear to fund the new hobby.
 
Johnytuono said:
I suppose any hobby can make you fed up sometimes. Maybe think of taking a break from it. What I wouldn't do is sell my gear until I've had a loooooong lay off. Photography is the sort of hobby that you can easily get back in to (if you still have the gear).
JohnyT
Click to expand...

Pretty much.

Take a break... stop trying so hard.... do something different.

Marriage kurtailed a lot of my photography; cost, time, hassle & grief... I got a little digi-compact about 2002 as I refused to spend seriouse money on something that at the time I deemed to have about as much optical quality as a 35mm disposeable film camera.....

I have been trying to scan my archive of old film for the last three years, and there is one folder of scanned negatives, that contains probably 1/3 of all the pics scanned so far called "Miscelaniouse Landscapes and other pretentiouse crap" That after scanning I have looked at and though "WHY on EARTH did I think that was worth a bit of silver halide!"

Conversely, looking through the folders of 'nasty digital' pics taken with the little compact since 2002.... I am constantly stunned by how many are actually quite good shots, and despite low resulotion are far more interesting and worth while than some of the pretentiouse crap I took with a fancy SLR.

I also have about 10,000 digi-snaps of bits of Land-Rover or old Motorbike, which I took to illustrate something I was doing mechanics wise to one of them for a forum post.... replicating the Haynes manuals kind of stuff, but showing stuff they dont tell you in the Haynes like how to 'cheat' fitting a ball-joint wiper seal onto a Land-Rover axle without splitting the steering swivil...... yeah... dont worry about it!

But daftly, pictures I would have never taken with the Film Camera becouse, well, the subject wasn't worth sticking on my wall, and it would have cost too much in film to take 30 photo's of how to chop a seal into two bits and squash it round a flange..... yet looking at THOSE... actually, they are probably the pictures in my collection more people have had any interest at looking at! Sad, twisted people who like old Land-Rovers and motorbikes and get all exited about rubber 'gaiters' admitedly.... but those people's interest spurred me to take more, and they have spurred more interest still etc etc...

And all taken NOT becouse I want to take photo's for thier own sake, but becouse I have had something 'interesting' to take a photograph of.

Going through the random folders of scans and snaps; putting them into collections, now.... Well, I have just updated a Face-Book Album of family Photo's having found another little stache of pictures from that set; photo's from my Grandparents Golden Wedding aniversary party in I think 1995, a boat trip down the River Avon. I took a lot of pictures that day, by the looks of it; about five films worth by the look of it! About 150 frames. an awful lot when you had to buy film! Family who are in them, can now glimpse them from wherever they are, of course, but the ones that people comment on are the ones with people in them, some-times a bit blurry, grab-shots, ones with tops of heads cut off, or edges of fingers in the way of the lens when one of the kids picked up a loose camera of something.... becouse they are 'interesting' and invoke a memory, or they have people in them that are now dead younger family members never met or whatever..... the pictures of stuff I took along the way? Ducks flying under the arch of a bridge; the bridge; the sunset... skipped over... no-one is really bothered, there's no 'direct' connection....

I think that people's expectations of a photo have changed a lot over the years, and that the pictureque and decorative is no longer so sought after. We get fantastic scenary piped into our homes on 99 channels of TV these days, we can bag an exotic holiday on a last minute booking, and experience it first hand, and we have cameras on on our telephones; and we are immured to pure asthetics to a greater degree. But personal interests remain.

So, give it a break, stop trying so hard; stop working on the interest of photography.... work on other interests... and maybe photo them.... and the enthusiasm will return.... if not? Well, you have a new interest!
 
Not with photography, even after ~30 yrs...sometimes I have little motivation due to lack of "challenge" or drive....Then I just take a break...Eventually some motivation comes along...

I did go thru such a thing with golf...I was pretty damn good and it got to the point where every mistake ****ed me off....I gave it up and now I'm just a hack. And I'm happier this way.
 
not with Photos, love taking shots of anything and everything but i do see where you are coming from, a while back i worked for a company and i managed my dept, problem was that the company employed a new general manager to run the whole over heads that made managing our dept of the business bloody hard work and after much deciding from weeks of thinking this isnt worth the hassle i left and carried on properly so to speak with my photos and my mrs doing her nursing.

stick at it though, everything usually always gets better, unless your managing director is a useless arse like our one was. haha
 
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