Avoiding Burnout in Street Photography
At my photography club, we start each meeting by going around the circle to share our names, our preferred genres, and what’s inspired us lately. I often struggle to come up with a direct answer to that last part, though I suspect plenty of things inspire me subconsciously — films, music, other people’s photography, and so on. *
I find that when I’m actually out on the streets, that inspiration doesn’t always translate. Sometimes you need something more immediate — the light, the weather, a fleeting moment.
It’s in those moments that you can draw on your inspiration — using whatever technical skills you have to operate the camera, and your imagination to see and create something interesting.
Practice Makes Perfect
However, to develop that imagination and those technical skills, you have to spend many, many hours in less inspiring moments — simply working on your craft.
It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: a photographer needs inspiration to create, yet inspiration isn’t always easy to find — often it’s the novelty that makes things interesting. But isn’t a hobby supposed to be fun? Well, kind of.
If you want to be good at anything, there’ll be plenty of times you’ll probably hate doing it — and if you don’t, you’re probably not working hard enough. I’ve always believed that practice makes perfect, but the trouble with photography is that, unlike other hobbies — say, playing a musical instrument — it hasn’t traditionally been seen as something you have to practise to the same degree.
Of course, you can practise simply by getting out and shooting, but unless you’re trying new things — or even drilling specific skills like framing, panning, or focusing — you’ll probably just end up refining what you already know rather than improving in any meaningful way.
With a musical instrument, you can’t just play something — unless it’s fairly simple for your skill level. It has to be practised endlessly before you can perform it, and it’s only at that stage that you start to refine the piece. That’s where I think a lot of photographers are: they’re constantly playing, but not doing much of the actual practising.
Burnout
But when do you reach the point where it feels like all you’re doing is practising, not really playing? That’s usually when inspiration runs dry. One way around it is to let the practice itself be the inspiration — learning new skills you can draw on later, when that creative spark finally returns.
Sometimes it feels like the better days never come, and inspiration seems far, far away. That’s why this blog will touch on burnout — and how to avoid it if possible. I’d like to claim I’m some kind of expert on avoiding burnout, but I’m not. I’m more of an expert in getting burnt out, so hopefully, reversing my steps can offer a decent strategy for anyone else. There’s a lesson in there somewhere…
I think Street Photography is one of the more unforgiving genres of photography. Only in such a way that it can be absolutely brutal when there’s nothing happening and your photos can be less than garbage if they’re not great. It’s kind of all or nothing in that way.
I think one of the mistakes I made in my first couple of years was trying to push through boredom and a lack of inspiration by going out again and again, without making any effort to keep things fresh.
Doing this will get you some good photos, but it quickly starts to feel like a chore. I remember going straight into the city every day after work — sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone — but without fail, I was out in the grey, trying to get shots and learn.
Somewhere along the way, I guess I must have grown tired of it, because I blinked and two years had passed — and I could probably count the number of times I went out on one hand.
It just seemed to sneak up on me. Before I knew it, I was back on the street, trying to regain lost muscle memory from countless hours of photography — as if from another life.
Whats the Solution??
These days I try and fit photography around my life rather than the other way around.
I go out regularly, but not as often for photo walks that exist as an end in themselves. More often than not, I have a bag with me to carry a book and the now-obligatory phone charger, so it’s no extra hassle to throw the camera in there. I keep the setup light — just the camera and a small 50mm prime — so I barely even notice it’s there. Just a heavy plastic and glass rock in my bag, nothing to it.
This means I have a camera on me more often that not so I can photograph whenever and not feel like I have to get something or its a bad walk. Usually my “Photo Walks” are taking photos on the way to meet friends for example or if I’m popping into town to do some shopping. Much rarer are the days where I’m going into town to do photography as a solo activity.
This means I usually have a camera on me, so I can take photos whenever I like without feeling like I have to capture something or the walk was wasted. Most of my “photo walks” happen on the way to meet friends or when I’m popping into town to do some shopping. Much rarer are the days when I go into town solely for photography as a solo activity.
Photography as a Hobby
The dedicated photo walks I used to do solo are now more often with friends. Looking back, even though I didn’t realise it at the time, all those solo walks probably made me lose sight of the fun in the hobby — it started to feel more like an unpaid job.
I see a lot of people on Instagram stuck on the hamster wheel, churning out content the way I used to. But no matter how good you are, it’s impossible to produce your best work when you’re posting every day — or even several times a day. You’d probably be better off spending that time getting inspired, rather than checking how many likes you’ve got.
So what’s the takeaway? Not much, really. Keep it simple. Enjoy photography. If it’s not a job, don’t treat it like one — treat it like a hobby. Hobbies are meant to be fun.
*If you’re interested as to what it is this week? If I had to pick then its OkLou’s performance on Tiny Desk. What’s Tiny Desk? It’s essentially MTV Unplugged for the ADD generation. Check it out
