How to Avoid January Burnout as a Photographer
Image by Posy Quarterman
How to avoid that gloomy January slump as a photographer and what you can do to inspire your best creativity for 2020.
Every year around mid-November the dreariness of Portland winter sets in and my mental state goes with it. I push through with the distraction of family sessions and editing because, after all, it is the busy season for family photographers. My birthday at the beginning of December and Christmas at the end get me through the month with equal parts distraction and overwhelm. New Year’s Day rolls around with it’s sparkles and bubbles and then… SPLAT [insert GIF of my face hitting an open locker door]; January hits me like a ton of burnt out bricks every. damn. year.
After working for months, producing thousands of images of happy, loving, beautiful families, suddenly I’m in my PJs on the couch, certain that everything I’ve ever produced is boring, meaningless crap.
This is not new. I have spent many a January questioning every photo I’ve taken and every plan I’ve made for the future. Every year I could see it coming like a rushing train of dread, and for a long time, I would just lay myself flat and allow it to run me over.
Until the year I’d had enough. I stood up and gave that train the middle finger (or maybe I hugged the conductor - both are completely plausible responses from me). The point is, I figured out a way to embrace that burnout and use it to my advantage.
Now I look forward to January’s inevitable slump and the positive changes it forces me to make.
If any of the above sounds familiar to you, I’m living proof that it’s possible to stop hating January and actually turn this into a rejuvenating time of year for your work and your business.
Image by TFN 2020 teacher Jamie Thrower (Studio XIII Photography)
Want some insight? Read on:
The first piece of advice I would give you is to recognize the importance of down time. Sometimes the burnout you feel in your mind is actually your body – and your internal creative person-- screaming for a rest.
I once read a study that showed that the brain’s resources are depleted after an intense period of focus, which in turn impedes its performance. The same study showed that even a brief period away from the point of focus can restore the brain’s ability to think creatively. So if you’ve been furiously shooting and editing for a few months without taking a real break, now is the time to put the camera down and walk away from Lightroom for a bit.
If, like me, January is the time of year when that evil little voice in your head screams the loudest, perhaps you will, like me, particularly appreciate these words from Sally Mann’s gorgeous memoir, Hold Still. I was ecstatic that she - a master of photography – faces similar demons on a regular basis:
The voice of that despair suggests seducingly to me that I should give up, that I’m a phony, that I’ve made all the good pictures I’m ever going to, and I have nothing more worth saying.”
It turns out that discouraging voice has nothing to do with talent, and that the biggest mistake we can make is to listen to it. Sally Mann goes on to say:
“it leaves me with only two choices: I can resume the slog and take more pictures, thereby risking further failure and despair, or I can guarantee failure and despair by not making more pictures. It’s essentially a decision between uncertainty and certainty and curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.
So I soldier on, taking one dodo of a picture after another, enticed by just enough promising ones to keep going.
Photo by TFN 2020 teacher Yan Palmer
And really, that’s all we can do is keep going, right? The way I find the confidence in myself to continue making work I will find meaningful and of value, is to sit with the work I’ve already made and meditate a bit on it.
I like to spend the early days of January looking through all of my sessions from the previous year, culling out my very favorites and creating a portfolio of sorts from my year. I find that in doing so, I end up becoming reacquainted with the work that gave me joy (and pride) throughout the year, and my spirits are immediately lifted enough to think I may as well slog on, as Sally Mann would say.
This practice came to me rather accidentally, really. You know how photographers used to do that whole “Best of [insert year]” blog post thing back when blogging was a thing (we’re doing our best to bring it back, in case you hadn’t noticed!)? Well I always found myself on the viewer side of that – already in that I-suck time of year – and I would immediately become queen of the pity party, accepting that indeed I am no good, and here is the direct evidence: all these talented photographers flaunting their gorgeous work, which is so clearly better than mine. Whether or not any of that is true, I believed it was. And yet, a dear friend told me to suck it up and blog anyway.
She pestered me to do a “best of” post, because she wanted to see it. And honestly, sometimes all it takes is one person in your corner; my friend thought my work was good enough, or at least she wanted to see a compilation of my favorites, so with nothing better to do (I mean, it was January after all), I did it. I sat with my year’s worth of edited client photos and I looked at EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. And while I did that I laughed, and remembered funny things that went down at my sessions, and kind words clients had written in response. Sure, I cringed too, there’s always going to be some of that, but in the end I came out with a post full of images I was really proud to have my name attached to. I blogged them before I could change my mind. My best of post helped me realize that I liked the work I had created and I was inspired to do more, and make it better. With that, I felt myself slowly crawling out of the slump I had been in.
Photo by TFN 2020 teacher Courtney Holmes
So with all that said, here is my challenge to you: Best of 2019
1. Look at your calendar and assign a chunk of time each day to do absolutely nothing photography related. Meet a friend for brunch, go for a run in a new-to-you spot, visit a local art gallery, or just bundle up under the covers and spend a few hours reading.
2. Look at your calendar an assign a chunk of time - at least two hours, probably more - for doing a 2019 portfolio review. Cull out every image that makes you feel something, specifically something positive. It doesn’t have to be work from a paid session, just any photo you took in 2019 that you feel proud of. From there, try to select no more than three photos from every session or setting. When you have a final gallery of your best of the best, blog them or schedule them for social media, but use it as an opportunity to show off a year’s worth of greatness.
3. Set aside yet another chunk of hours to cull through your website/online portfolio and make room for your new favorites by taking out anything that you no longer love.My rule of thumb for this culling process is if it makes me pause or hesitate, if I have the thought should I include this? then scrap it. I want my final portfolio to be stellar, something I can look at whenever I’m feeling down.
Photo by Posy Quarterman
BONUS! 4 things to do during the year to keep burnout at bay:
Sign up for a class (photography or otherwise) that will push you creatively.
Clean/reorganize/decorate your workspace.
Start a personal photo project focused on YOU and your creativity, not client work.
Schedule a monthly meet up with local photographers in your area (brunch, coffee, tea, drinks, etc).
