Photography sabatical

Has anyone here taken a year (or more) off their "hobby"?

Personally, I feel like taking a year off photography, has anyone done this before and come back to photography?

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #16485444
Has anyone here taken a year (or more) off their "hobby"?

Personally, I feel like taking a year off photography, has anyone done this before and come back to photography?

Well, why do you want to take a year off and what are you expecting to gain? Are you just burnt out? What if maybe a month, two months, or six months in your dying to pick up a camera.. why hold yourself back?

In the past I've spent months away from photography after being burnt out or due to being stuck in a creative rut, but I never defined a time frame, just picked the camera back up when it felt right.

I've gotten very busy and not had as much time for photography as I'd like to devote to it, but haven't felt like stopping it yet.

Perhaps you're too caught up with the technial aspect of photography. If I were to ask you "why do you make photographs?" what would you say?

If it's just a hobby then it's not really an issue whether you want to take photos or not. Stop and resume as you please.

iamascientist wrote in post #16485580
Well, why do you want to take a year off and what are you expecting to gain? Are you just burnt out? What if maybe a month, two months, or six months in your dying to pick up a camera.. why hold yourself back?

In the past I've spent months away from photography after being burnt out or due to being stuck in a creative rut, but I never defined a time frame, just picked the camera back up when it felt right.

Ever since I've picked up a dslr camera in 2007, the photography has been non-stop, virtually every day has been more or less I've been photographing something or the other, even on holiday

I took about six months off a few years ago when I lost a lot of motivation - I got a lot of silly ideas into my head and it took another few years (and a load more silly ideas along the way) to get them out again.

In the inital period, I wasn't sure I would come back to Photography and it was only the fact that I'd committed to doing a degree in it that I did. I didn't always enjoy the degree, and I take a dim view of most of my work during that time, but at least it kept me involved with Photography and gave me time to figure out what I wanted to do with it. I was also lucky to retain the support of an early client who became a mentor and helped me into my final direction - I probably wouldn't have found it on my own.

In the end I have found what I really like photographing (similar to yourself in performing arts, although you seem to do Music, Rich whereas I do theatre and dance), made a few other changes in my life (moved country, other little things) and slowly got back into shooting more generally.

Hope this rambling helps in some way with your decision making ...

Owain Shaw wrote in post #16485982
I took about six months off a few years ago when I lost a lot of motivation - I got a lot of silly ideas into my head and it took another few years (and a load more silly ideas along the way) to get them out again.

In the inital period, I wasn't sure I would come back to Photography and it was only the fact that I'd committed to doing a degree in it that I did. I didn't always enjoy the degree, and I take a dim view of most of my work during that time, but at least it kept me involved with Photography and gave me time to figure out what I wanted to do with it. I was also lucky to retain the support of an early client who became a mentor and helped me into my final direction - I probably wouldn't have found it on my own.

In the end I have found what I really like photographing (similar to yourself in performing arts, although you seem to do Music, Rich whereas I do theatre and dance), made a few other changes in my life (moved country, other little things) and slowly got back into shooting more generally.

Hope this rambling helps in some way with your decision making ...

That is quite an interesting story Owain. It looks like you persisted and eventually became comfortable with your relationship to photography.

frugivore wrote in post #16486111
That is quite an interesting story Owain. It looks like you persisted and eventually became comfortable with your relationship to photography.

It's not that I'm uncomfortable, I just feel that I've come to the proverbial brick wall

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #16486468
It's not that I'm uncomfortable, I just feel that I've come to the proverbial brick wall

I think it's important to ask yourself why you make photographs. Is your photography helping either you or someone else? If not, then there's your problem.

There were times when I constantly took pictures for no other reason than to take pictures, and it's then that photography became stale and uninteresting to me. Then I started to think about what I wanted to communicate with my photograph and it became interesting again.

I closed my business in 1998 and didn't touch a real camera again until 2010. I even let the wife take the family pics on the P&S. Then in 2010 I bought a T2i, then a 7D, and a bunch of lenses and lighting gear, and stands, and wireless gadgets, and backgrounds, and all sorts of other junk and dove right in. What's the concern?

I haven't taken a single shot since August 2013. I miss it, but will be back early next year with new gear

I think it feeds my drive a bit more - we will see I suppose

frugivore wrote in post #16486111
That is quite an interesting story Owain. It looks like you persisted and eventually became comfortable with your relationship to photography.

I would say I'm now comfortable with my relationship with Photography.

There was another thread recently with a graph plotting ability and self-perceived ability against time. It seems that I probably fell into fairly common the 'Oh God I suck' trough and wallowed there (like a pig in a different sort of trough) for a while - I was quite young at the time and got all sorts of notions surrounding creativity and originality into my head, coupled with what's best described as jealousy of some artist friends of mine I perceived as genuinely creative compared to my own pseudo-creativity through Photography.

It was at this point that I stopped photographing. I only started again when it came time to start the University course I had committed to but not really thought about all summer due to ... friendships and alcohol, mostly.

I spent my years at University trying various things to correct these concerns in my head, as well as exploring things I liked and didn't like in contemporary Art Photography. All of this lead to a lot of work I didn't like. I was trying too hard, and I didn't really know what I was trying to do, exactly. It also involved a lot of cutting, sticking and painting stuff, which I loved and my best records of University are my sketchbooks which didn't get graded, or looked at much of the time. I perhaps spent more time on those than my Photography.

Fortunately, at the same time, I was being led (slowly, like a recalcitrant camel) towards Theatre Photography (by a former client in Motorsport Photography who retained more belief in me than I had in myself) and started going to the Edinburgh Festival every summer.

Whether it was Edinburgh or Theatre Photography I loved first, I came to love the latter. Getting a job (working for a local Wildlife charity) in Photography straight out of University also helped. I didn't have the opportunity to over-intellectualise everything or worry about what I was creating, how or why ... I simply had to take pictures of the subjects I was given, and try to make the pictures as good as possible, which it turns out I still enjoyed and had managed to keep doing long enough to remember that I enjoyed it.

Through all of this, I came to the conclusion that the best thing I can do with Photography is make work someone likes - and first of all, that someone should be me, or if I'm working for someone, they should probably come first. As you yourself said above - "Is your photography helping either you or someone else? If not, then there's your problem."

I'm no longer hung up on creativity or originality (whatever they are) or Art Photography but, ultimately, Art is a collection of pictures (in the case of Photography and painting) people (or at least some people) like as well. Someone around here (I think) has a quote that "the idea of Art kills Creativity" and that could well have been true for me. (That's not to say I'm against art, or even Art.)

I shouldn't be allowed parentheses, I can't be trusted with them ... I'll also happily delete this if my extra information has taken the story beyond the realm of interesting.

I'm similar to kfreels. I did a photography program, worked in a photo lab, worked as a commercial photographer, wedding photographer, got burnt out and never shot for myself because it was just too expensive shooting 120 film and 4x5 film all the time (I never shot 35mm). I ended up selling all my gear including studio lights and shooting with a PS for many years until my wife bought me a T1i one Christmas. Now I'm fully back into it again.

kfreels wrote in post #16486615
I closed my business in 1998 and didn't touch a real camera again until 2010. I even let the wife take the family pics on the P&S. Then in 2010 I bought a T2i, then a 7D, and a bunch of lenses and lighting gear, and stands, and wireless gadgets, and backgrounds, and all sorts of other junk and dove right in. What's the concern?

I'm thinking of just taking a year off, I'm more than likely to keep my gear. It's been pretty relentless since 2007, the only problem is that I've made so many contacts in my niche, I'm scared that once I return, I may of lost contact with them

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #16485444
Has anyone here taken a year (or more) off their "hobby"?

Personally, I feel like taking a year off photography, has anyone done this before and come back to photography?

I've done it, but not in a strict sense. I went through a pretty rough time and photography just didn't mean much to me for a couple of years...I didn't have the energy or drive to shoot. I didn't completely stop shooting, but my output dropped dramatically. When I came back I started working more with video and things that I'd never done before. Now that I'm back, I've regained that drive to shoot and learn and improve. I think stepping away for a bit helped me regroup and find new interests within photography that I hadn't explored before.