Blog 31 - Act II: Photography Burnout & Getting Back Behind the Lens

Having a time out. So here I am about five months since my last real blog. So what happened? Last year I dove head first into photography. Not only did I dive head first, I landed in a rabbit hole that kept going down down down. Before I knew it, I had more lenses than I thought possible. I even went down the film camera route. And in my haste, I had 50 odd film cameras ranging from Kodak box brownies up to late 90’s APS Advantix cameras. In all that was my dads Fuji ST901 from 1974, and my grandpa’s Balda Baldixette from 1956. This includes Twin Lens Reflex (TLR), Single Lens Reflex (SLR), Medium Format, you name it. Not to mention the lenses! But it was like an uncontrollable urge. Junk shops, ebay, even camera markets! Six lenses for £15. No idea if they worked or not, but they were bought.

This was all the background to using my pride and joy, my Sony A7iii mirrorless camera. I’d tried a few different lenses (See above spendings spree). I tended to gravitate to my 85mm f1.4 prime for most things, and still toyed with 20mm f1.8 for astro which is limited in the midlands due to light pollution, and landscape.

I become very involved in a local pop up arts brand/market that I try and shoot whenever I can, I attended a big drum and bass concert with AAA to shoot as much as possible.

Then Christmas approached. We went on a family holiday to Prague for the xmas markets. I set myself the challenge of using film only. So thats what I did. No digital camera at all, just a 35mm Fuji and a 120 Zeiss…. Mixed results.

After Christmas I traveled to Norway and Finland with a quick jaunt into Sweden with a friend. This whole trip was designed for photography. We went snorkelling with Orca’s in the Arctic waters, tried and failed to get brand sponsorship for our trip from a Norwegian beer called ARCTIC BEER, snowmobiled across a frozen lake for 30km in Finland where the sun didnt rise…. All whilst drinking many hand beers and photographing.

Following that I managed to get a AAA pass to a country and western night in Leicester and got some great shots there, before heading off with the family to Iceland in February for a week. Airbnb’ing our way across southern Iceland in some pretty interesting storm conditions….. always with my camera and drone etc.

Then in March……………. A slump. The only time I shot anything, was with my old Sony NEX5R and a repurposed disposable camera lens attached. Oh a a 35mm point and shoot for one roll of film.

In April…… me, my wife and daughter got up at 4am to catch a peak district sunrise. The camera came along for that, with some great photos taken but more importantly, some great family time which is so valuable. And of course Bow bringing along the Sony NEX5R for her to use, as always.

Is it possible I experienced photography burnout? Google’s AI states “Hobby burnout is a state of exhaustion, loss of interest, or emotional numbness regarding activities once enjoyed, often caused by overcommitting, high-pressure perfectionism, or turning leisure into a chore.”

The website “The Skimm” has a good article on this (https://www.theskimm.com/health/mental-health/hobby-burnout). But essentially as with any other burnout, too much of a good thing and all that! So I had a rest from it. I’ve left another place of work and started back somewhere familiar. I feel that you get to a certain age where if something doesn’t feel like a good place to be, get out. I’m lucky that my family is in the place it is to allow me to do these things, as well as pursue my photography as well. I’ve used the time off to just do what comes naturally for photography, that may be nothing for a few weeks, maybe read a book (Can recommend Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Eye), but its gave me breathing space. Part of this ‘re-org’ space has been trying to declutter and rearrange my photography life. The space in the hobby room, the kit in my bag, the shelves with endless 1950’s lenses. I’ve even took the bold step of actually selling some stuff. I offloaded a Sony kit lens and a Samyang 35mm 1.4 prime on ebay (positive steps for me haha!) I took off to on my own for four days to places I’ve never been before and most normal people probably wouldn’t want to go. I managed Republic of Moldova, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria), Ukraine and Romania. That’ll be a blogpost all on its own. But I'm glad I went, it has kind of reignited my photography somewhat!

Where now? To answer that i need to ask another question, why did the blogs stop? In an effort to try and churn out the weekly blog post to try and appease the all powerful social media algorithm, my content was getting generally shitter and shitter. The photos were fine (My opinion obviously), but for the blog posts themselves I was using AI more and more. “Chat GPT write me 2000 word blog on why my camera takes crap photos”…. Which it then dutifully did. But it wasn’t mine.This started to wear me down, almost feeling like it was work. I want getting paid for this, I had no contract that said I have to provide 8000 words per month over 4 posts. I’d put this on myself, and the end result was AI slop! I had became a slave to the algorithm and my seven followers! So now, after a few weeks off, it’s time to maybe try again. This time, no pressures, no AI, just me and my neurodiverse brain churning out whatever seems pertinent at the time. I will have an ideal plan which is a blog post a month. This will be me. My words. Not AI. So I apologise now for the poor grammar, spelling, prose etc. Thats the blog plan. What about the rest? Well on the agenda I have a weekend of football photography booked in, a sunset photowalk in Leicester, a trip to Greece in July….. We’ll see where it all goes. If you’re still here, thank you. :-)