Anyone ever feel burnt out (business)?

Sounds like your not in a place in your life to have a business. Business takes a lot of time, and if photography is not your full time 100% business then that time has to come from someplace. I just feel lucky to be in the age of smart phones, I was camping over the weekend and was able to book a wedding and a boudoir shoot all from the beach.

Yep. For sure. I think thrice. And now I am officially out of the game of wedding photography. Many of my friends and past colleagues (AND parents of course) cannot fathom it. They say, "But you're so good at it! Don't give up!" To which I say, "But everyday that I do it, I am miserable."

There is nothing to be ashamed of. If what you were doing today was going to be the very last thing you ever did in your life, would you be satisfied?

I feel exactly where you are coming from. I have a FT 8-5 banking job and work my photography business almost 7 days a week on top of it. I typically shoot every night after work and process after that until 12-1am. Plus weekends I typically shoot both Saturday and Sunday. I feel that I'm at the point where I need to decided on one career or the other and right now I plan on taking my photography business FT in about 6-7 months. I am burnt out and do hate photography at times but it's just because I'm always doing it after a long 9 hours at the office. I think a solid 50hr work weeks shooting would be wonderful. Stressful at times but in the grand scheme of things, great.

I'm exactly the same, full time civil engineer with a hobby business that takes time 7 days a week, but in my case, it's fly fishing tuition. Any hobby that turns into a business is no longer a hobby, end of. I'm just in the position of deciding whether to go part time photographer part time fly fishing tuition, but, would that then ruin two hobbies that I'm good at???

welshwizard1971 wrote in post #17708776
I'm exactly the same, full time civil engineer with a hobby business that takes time 7 days a week, but in my case, it's fly fishing tuition. Any hobby that turns into a business is no longer a hobby, end of. I'm just in the position of deciding whether to go part time photographer part time fly fishing tuition, but, would that then ruin two hobbies that I'm good at???

I can say this... shooting has definitely sucked out a lot of the "fun" from photography for me. However, when I finally do get the chance to go shoot for myself, not my business, it's still just as enjoyable if not more because it's not something that gets to happen all that often anymore.

I do sports photography, I have shot a ton of stuff over the last 40 years. Last year I went with Max Preps and worked way too hard to justify it. I have made the decision to shoot what I want, not worrying about if it will sell. I have a lot of money in gear, but I want to shoot only the things that interest me. I'm in a position where I really don't need the income from photography to still eat well. I am going to concentrate more on club sports, gymnastics, cheer, and things where folks appreciate the work, not the dollar. Although this decision has been made, I still refuse to work for free. If I want to shoot it, I will. If someone else what me to shoot it, they need to bring money.

Doing it as a FT business can definitely suck the fun out of it sometimes. I really enjoy travel photography and that's what I do to recharge my batteries because I just do it for me and if other people like it, that's a bonus. I'm single and I don't have kids, so I can do a handful of weddings and then take a month off and hit the road if I want to. The break definitely helps me refocus on the job and keeps it from becoming monotonous. And I usually end up selling prints from the stuff I shoot while I travel, so the last couple of times it's actually almost paid for itself.

elrey2375 wrote in post #17710593
Doing it as a FT business can definitely suck the fun out of it sometimes. I really enjoy travel photography and that's what I do to recharge my batteries because I just do it for me and if other people like it, that's a bonus. I'm single and I don't have kids, so I can do a handful of weddings and then take a month off and hit the road if I want to. The break definitely helps me refocus on the job and keeps it from becoming monotonous. And I usually end up selling prints from the stuff I shoot while I travel, so the last couple of times it's actually almost paid for itself.

If you don't mind me asking, where are you selling the prints at?

I've sold some stuff on 500px, but mostly it's people who find me through Facebook or Instagram. Instagram is a great way to reach a potentially large number of people who range from people who just like your work all the way to art directors or someone who wants to buy prints, etc.

Ratjack wrote in post #17621895
Have any of you ever decided to do photography as a business and later decided you didn't enjoy it?

No, not at all.

Ratjack wrote in post #17621895
I absolutely love photography, but I guess it lost it's fun factor after I stopped doing it for myself with my own ideas, and started doing it for other people. All I really seem to do anymore are family photos... and I honestly can't stand doing them.

Well, I can certainly understand your burn-out. It seems that in your business, you offer photographic services, and as such you have to shoot what other people want you to shoot.

I guess I have never felt burnt out because in my business, I shoot what I like to shoot, when I want to shoot it, and then after the shooting is all over I market the photos and try to sell them. I don't offer photography as a service; rather, I offer photos as a product.

If I had to shoot what other people wanted me to shoot I would hate it, too. I did a little of that when I first started out, and quickly realized that that is really not for me.

It always surprises me how such a high percentage of people doing photography as a business offer photographic services instead of selling images as stock. You'd think there'd be more people out there doing it the way I do it. Yet, for many, doing photography professionally means having people hire them to shoot. No wonder there is so much burn-out.

I was a full time staff photographer over 20 years ago and I flamed out in a major way. Except for a rare few who get to shoot what they love its hard to balance the need to be creative and to satisfy clients. I had a full darkroom load on top of shooting and I finally just had to step away. It was several years before I regained my desire to shoot, let alone shoot for other people. Since then Ive always been a guy who shoots a bit on the side. I do a wedding or two each year and some portrait work by referral from friends and past clients.

A midlife career and location change has me pondering doing a bit more paid work as I need the cash and digital has allowed for some creativity to seep into portrait work in a way that film didnt easily allow.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17712838
It always surprises me how such a high percentage of people doing photography as a business offer photographic services instead of selling images as stock. You'd think there'd be more people out there doing it the way I do it. Yet, for many, doing photography professionally means having people hire them to shoot. No wonder there is so much burn-out.

...well its actually much easier to make money selling portraits or wedding photography person to person than it is to sell stock, and it wouldn't surprise me if the "drop out" rate (not burn out rate) from stock photographers is higher than average. You can't just start taking photos of wildlife and landscapes and start making money. You need to be shooting images consistently up to industry standards for starters: you need to know who is buying and what they like to buy. But you can take bad pictures of friends and family and end up stumbling into running a photography business really quite easily.

Don't underestimate the skill and effort it took you to create a sustainable business. If it was so easy that everyone could do it, then everyone would.

I really enjoy product photography as a pasttime...to have to do it for a living I would dread. You have fussy creative directors/art directors to please, you can spend literally a half day in set creation and lighting for a single shot, all the while not being sure if your work is not going to please the AD when he/she finally shows up. As a pasttime, in product photography you have only yourself to please, so set design and lighting is all based upon 'I like this, I don't like that' as you go.

With portraiture as a business, digital now provides you instant feedback from the client, so you know that you are pleasing them or not, not doing what necessarily pleases what you (as a 'creative' photographer) want to do with razor thin DOF or whatever other artsy ploy that only pleases photographers. The fun comes out of it when the subject is being forced by someone else into having their portrait photographed.

With wedddings as a business, most everyone at the wedding is busy having fun all day, and you occasionally have the vexation of the minister who tells the pro "No photography during the ceremony" while all the guest are flashing away at the same time, but that comes with the territory so you can easily overlook that annoyance!
(Let's not delve into the occasional Bridezilla or Bridezilla's monster mother...for the most part both are delightful!)

Stock is somewhat hard, as you have no idea who the client will be, nor what it is that will set apart your photo over someone else's. But otherwise, you get to be an opportunistic hobbyist in wandering around looking for possible things to shoot, and it truly is a business only when you find a stock agency and go thru the formalities associated with having them represent your work to clients.

Digital makes the 'business' end harder, I feel. You have less 'product' (prints) to sell, more expectations to give them digital copies of all the shots with little direct compensation for providing them, and it seems that you might as well be an plumber charging by the hour because plumbers have less of the 'I can do that' attitude among your clients. In weddings or portraiture, you spend more of YOUR OWN time (rather than a commercial lab rat's time whose cost you pass on to the client) in altering and cropping photos and retouching things, or your take on the direct labor cost of a postprocessor on staff...more time editing, less money (fewer prints sold)

Ratjack wrote in post #17621895
Have any of you ever decided to do photography as a business and later decided you didn't enjoy it

The most fun part about a photography business is the business part for me. Photography just so happens to be the product being sold.

I took up photography to make money from photography.