It's late January, and this is my first post of 2024. Hardly something to brag about. I only wrote 7 posts in 2023 - which makes it my second-worst year (my worst was 2014 when I only wrote 4). That should tell you something about my photography mindset for most of 2023 (and a good deal of 2022 if I'm honest).
It's ironic really. Since 2023 was also the year that I finally, FINALLY, got a brand new camera. The Panasonic Lumix S5. I've wanted a new camera for well over ten years, and spent most of that time with second-hand gear, trying to figure out what I actually wanted in a camera system. And in 2023 I got it. A small (relatively speaking), full-frame 24 MP camera with excellent ergonomics, outstanding optics, and a tonne of features - some of which I may actually use. If, that is, I can be bothered using my camera at all!?
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| Late Bloomer. Panasonic Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm 3.5/5.6. F8 @ 1/60th, ISO 3200 |
For someone like me, for whom photography has been more like an addiction than a passion, that last sentence above is quite alarming. My wife has, in fact, asked me if I may actually be depressed? For somebody who has lived and breathed photography for the last 30 years of their life, to be so uninterested in any of it, is certainly rather strange.
But I'm not - depressed that is. At least I don't think I am? I think what has happened is something akin to burn-out. Saturation point was finally reached a couple of years ago, and I think it's required time-off to work through it. Something similar may have happened, or may end up happening, to you?
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| Clearly Defined. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm. F5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 200 |
If this does happen to you (photography burn-out or whatever you want to call it), then my advice is to just let it. Don't panic. Don't rage against it. Don't try to 'push' through' regardless. Just let it take its course. However long it takes. Give yourself the time you need work through it. Do something else. Find another hobby. Put your camera away. And eventually, when the time is right, your passion for photography will start to come back. Probably....
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| Sunny Bight Track, Kaniere. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm. F6.3 @ 1/80th, ISO 800 |
I'm no expert, but speaking as someone who has gone (is going?) through this myself - I can only give my personal experience. Initially I did fight it. I tried everything I could to 'ignite' the passion again. Nothing really worked. Not even a trip away down South to Dunedin - although I did enjoy the trip and got a few good images.
In the end, I put my camera away and focused on other hobbies. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Would it be so bad if I never enjoyed photography again? Gulp.....
But then, as it so often does, fate stepped in and began to turn things around.
We are thinking of selling our house and moving to a more central location in the town where we live. And so we have been talking to real estate agents, have gone to a few open homes, and have had some agents look at our house.
One of those agents remarked on all the photographs up in our house, and so my wife told him I was a photographer. He got very excited at hearing this, because he was looking for a photographer to do some Real Estate work for him. I think you can see where this is going....
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| Sunny Bight, Kaniere. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm. F8 @ 1/200th, ISO 100 |
So Real Estate work has rekindled my passion for photography! Who'd have thunked it!? Certainly not me! But it has. And now I'm watching YouTube photography videos again, taking my camera out and getting familiar with it once more - and even thinking about investing in an ultra wide angle lens!
And the great thing about this resurgence of interest is that it hasn't been forced. I didn't find photography again - photography found me!
It's early days, for sure. And yet the above images were all shot today, because I wanted to go out and take photos! It was the wrong time of the day, with the wrong kind of light, in an area I've been dozens of times before. But it didn't matter. I just went out with my camera to enjoy the experience. And enjoy it I did.
So if you are in a photography funk - or any other kind of funk for that matter - my advice would be - just let it be. Don't push the issue. Drop it. And in time, God willing, your passion will return. Sometimes in the most surprising and unlikely of ways....
