Everyone experiences burnout at some point; whether it’s with school, work, etc. This post is going to discuss my experience with burning out on photography (surprised that it happened so quickly) and how I pushed through it.
Based on my last blog post everything seemed to be great with my photography. I was progressing with my skills and going to car shows on the regular. However, I neglected to state that I went through a brief period of burnout not too long ago.
What exactly burned me out? Simple: repetition. Confused? Take a look at the following shots below:
Acura NSX (NA1) - Japanese Car Cruise In (2019)
Corvette ZR1 (C7) - Long Beach GP (2019)
Ferrari Testarossa - South OC Cars and Coffee (5/4/2019)
Notice anything about the above photos?
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Still can’t figure it out?
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Despite being photos of different cars, the type of shot is the same. I soon realized all the photos of cars I was taking were these diagonal profile shots of the front / back. The biggest problem for me was because I was taking the same type of shots over and over again I felt like I was on auto-pilot every time I went to a car show. I would crouch down, frame my shot, then snap a couple photos before moving on to the next car. Photography was beginning to feel stale to me and it was my fault.
The first step I decided to take was to be more creative with my shots. In addition to taking the usual profile shots, I began making an effort to be more creative with different angles and focus in on details. Adding more types of shots to my repertoire would also force me to spend more time with each car and make me think about the situation I was in and how to extract what I thought would be the most creative looking photos from the subject. Some examples of these shots are below:
Lancia Delta S4 Badge - Saturday Shift (6/15/2019)
Jaguar XJ220 Shift Pattern - Saturday Shift (6/15/2019)
Toyota Corolla GT DOHC Badge - Supercar Sunday (6/23/2019)
One thing I noticed about trying to get these detailed / more creative shots was I needed to learn more about my camera in order to reliably get these types of shots. I stumbled across a couple YouTube videos and learned about things such as aperture, how to read a light meter, and how to control the focus points of the camera. Adding more creative shots started extinguishing the burnout, but some embers were still present.
Despite getting more creative with car photography, I still found myself bored. Yeah I was taking different types of shots, but my subject was still the same. Inspired by one YouTuber I discovered (Kai W), I took the advice of one of his videos and decided to explore other types of photography such as landscapes, street, macro, and long exposure. This desire to experiment came at a perfect time as I had a long vacation coming up and I decided to carry my camera around me at all times. I forced myself to experiment with different types of subjects and you can see some of the photos I took during my vacation below:
La Tostaderia Seafood - Grand Central Market (6/29/2019)
Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco, CA (7/1/2019)
Purple Flower - Getty Museum Garden (7/3/2019)
Japanese Village Plaza - Los Angeles, CA (7/6/2019)
Mazda Miata (NB1) Long Exposure - Castaic, CA (7/14/2019)
From here I felt my interest in photography was renewed and I was more confident in taking photos than ever. I was shooting in full manual and in total control of my camera. Because of this improvement in skill, I decided to make my first new lens purchase and landed on the Nikon AF-S 35mm F1.8 (Disclaimer: You should never buy new gear to upgrade your skills. Only buy gear after you’ve upgraded your skills and begin to feel the limitations of your current gear.) One of the reasons I chose this lens was because of its large aperture of F1.8 which allows me to shoot with a shallower depth of field and get more bokeh (blurry backgrounds / foregrounds). Some examples of shots with this lens at F1.8 are below:
Porsche Boxster Spyder Headrest - Pitstop Sunday (7/14/2019)
Celica All-Trac Trunk Badge (ST185) - Saturday Shift (7/20/2019)
So where am I going from here? For starters I am going to carry my camera around with me more often and also do more exploring for photography spots. I’m going to keep pushing the boundaries of both my skills and my gear while trying to upgrade both (money permitting).
I guess my advice from my personal experience with burnout is to do the following:
Change things up
Improve your skills
Add a new piece of gear (only after you’ve improved your skills and hit the limits of your current gear)
Hopefully this post can help you with getting over your own personal burnout. Like always, feel free to leave a comment below.
Thanks,
J. Stitt