New Directions and Burnout
There’s a thread going on over at TPF about what to do when you’re burned out. For so many of us, our journey into this business began with a hobby we loved and wanted to turn into a career. The flip side of doing this as a business is that suddenly, your hobby is your JOB. So what do you have left as a hobby? And when do you have time for such things, anyway, between shooting and selling and processing and ordering and marketing and keeping up with all the other administrative tasks that we do as studio owners?
Personally, I’ve been fighting a serious case of burnout for about a year. Part of it is for a good reason: we have a busy studio. Part of it is from teaching: you never get away from this business, because all of your “fun time away” trips are spent teaching other people about photography. Part of it, I think, is just cyclical. As artists, we tend to go through a period of feeling like we’re doing the same thing, all the time, every day, and we just need some new challenges. Changing things up a bit has always helped me fight the cycle.
Now that we’ve been in our space (which I really have loved) for the past two years, it’s time to either recommit or decide to take things in a new direction. I love my landlords. They’re great and it’s been a good business decision to be in a historic complex where the other businesses are branded in such a complimentary way to my own. But when you start thinking… for what I’ve paid out in rent for the past few years, I could be well into paying off my own small building, you start to think about planning for the future. 
So starting in December, the studio will be rebranding a little bit. Restructuring a little bit. Changing how we do things so that I can feel creative and fresh again. Planning for some future goals (like owning our own studio space). I like that with studio work in a retail space, I can do more sessions in one day. But I also like knowing that, when I go out and do location work, there’s something new every day, whether I’m shooting outside or bringing some of the studio kit indoors. And those clients who have been coming in for so many years that they’re sick of all of my backgrounds in the studio will now have new “backgrounds” to choose from.
So what do you all do when you’re experiencing burnout? Do you find that it’s a seasonal issue? For me, that is part of it, although I never really got over the “holiday blues” last season. What do you do to make things fun and new again? Shoot me some comments. I’d love to hear your ideas.
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I think what you’re talking about is largely a part of the curse of being a “creative.” We don’t conform to a box so when we feel like we’re in one, we start looking for ways to not be. Twitter is starting to feel like that to me as has my blog lately. It’s like listening to a new album over and over. It’s good at first but then it gets to feeling like the speed on songs change. I don’t know what the answer is, but it sounds like you’ve figured out a plan. And be proud to be creative. Some people see they’re in a rut and can’t imagine how to even get out of that….
Well you know change is good! I’m on my THIRD studio in nearly five years! When I think about how much I’ve spent on rent in the last 4.5 years I want to cry. I could have paid for an entire house already! I think this is a good move to juice up your creativity! And when you purchase your own studio then you can REALLY do what you want to your space. I struggle with that all the time because I don’t own my building I can’t justfiy creating spaces to shoot that I won’t be able to take with me! I’m excited and jealous!! I love the challenges of shooting on location!
Hi Shelby – just back rereading your blog & wanted to pipe up and say that whatever new direction you decide to head in, I have no doubts it will be a successful one! ~Sharon