Getting burnt out from shooting & editing

I have to say I'm not a photographer by trade, but I can start feeling how life is as one. I've always enjoyed picking up my camera and taking pictures whenever given the chance.

Ever since I picked up the 40D I started click away in Jan 08. Since then I've picked up a 24-70 Sigma, Sold that for a 24-70L and sold my kit lens for a 30mm 1.4 Sigma. Every new addition or new opportunity I ran at to shoot some more.

I've been going at a rate of possibly 2000 photos a month (roughly) with more photos coming in now more than ever. I've gone outside of my house 5 days this last week to take photos of events, people, for both friends and personal. It's taken a toll on me and I'm beginning to feel burnt out from all this shooting and editing.

How do you all cope with / balance shooting with everyday life (if photography is not your profession?)

I took a day off of work this past week to go through 6000 photographs from last weekend's off road races. That was just day one. Tuesday night through Wednesday at 3am before I started uploaded day #2 and went to bed for a couple of hours, then to work.

I wish I could just stay home and edit my photos, I'm burnt out working outside my photography.

Shoot with more discrimination would be my recommendation.
I think as you shoot more, you'll shoot less with each event.
Another option is if you have big memory cards, to shoot RAW and JPEG and only process a few of those special shots and just keep unprocessed JPEGs for most stuff.

I'm pretty much at war with my mind on my continued insistence on going out for everyday sunset photography (71,000+ photographs since January 2006). I've coped by taking less (fallen steadily from about 3,000 to 1,000 photographs a month), cutting sunset session times, finding more late afternoon things to photograph (such as flowers), and looking at all my old stuff to make me think, "tomorrow, that'll be the best day ever" even though I know that the summer months are usually the worst for sunsets.

Sometimes I change the rules, I cut time here, I go to an unplanned excursion out to another street, or I stop suddenly and take a shot from where I'm standing. I try to make it game-like to put a little excitement other than just riding my scooter all around to the same areas and taking the same angles. It's my game, my rules...the excitement can save me sometimes.

i envy you! i only shoot on weekends, and from where i am, there is nothing much to shoot! i would rather complain of burnout from 'over-shooting' than lament at the lack of photo-taking. but i have to admit i hate time spent infront of the computer doing PP! i shoot RAW and after a day or two of shooting you can imagine the time spent going thru every pic in Photoshop! i can understand the weariness of editing but during actual shooting, take time to enjoy the environment you're shooting in and the burnout would be duely 'compensated'. i mean if we're not shooting for our bread and butter, it should be a relaxing experience!

To be honest, pick a bit more careful what to shoot and how to shoot. 2000 photos a month is quite lot. Of course I mean this when you are shooting for fun. If shooting for fun, you shouldn't even be considering being fed up with this... remember it's FUN!

On the other side, I know such days... pretty much every World Championships I cover brings me to something like this. There you have at least one race a day, with bunch of other things to cover, it lasts 7-14days, your life is split between course, press center and coffee bar next to press center, with really late night dinner, after everything is finally done and sent, as only meal next to sandwich and chocolate bar or two during day. So after 2 weeks of life like this, you don't really feel like photography is so great thing

So for me it normally helps to be able to just drop camera for a week after this, and do something else (normally helluva lot of skiing or cycling, depending on season). And after few days, my trigger finger is itchy already

Not letting it get on top of you is a start. Process a little every so often.

Having said that I've just come back from 2 weeks on the Isle of Man for the TT. Every day there was racing or practice (between 600 and 2000 shots per day) I would be still going at 1 in the morning. Every day there wasn't I was out with my brother and his family (maybe 200 shots).

If i'd left them till I got home I wouldn't have processed most of them.

Also as it was my 4th year at the TT I am now slowly reducing the number of shots I take each day (no more fire and forget at 5fps just one at hopefully the right time, knowing when the backdrop is so bad that no amount of PP will recover the shot, so stop and watch the bikes).

Now I'm back at work my weekends American Football photos will take me all week to process (a little each night so as not to get fed up with them).

As Primoz says most of us are doing this for fun. I also find leaving my camera at home some weekends really helps.

Alan

I try to shoot carefully, and checking the LCD afterwards if it's not perfect I delete it right away. I hate PP and sorting through pictures on the computer. My harddrive is getting more and more full of pictures that I still have to PP! That's why I only shoot RAW when it's important stuff. Lightroom works very well to help speed things up!

primoz wrote in post #5736365
To be honest, pick a bit more careful what to shoot and how to shoot. 2000 photos a month is quite lot. Of course I mean this when you are shooting for fun. If shooting for fun, you shouldn't even be considering being fed up with this... remember it's FUN!

On the other side, I know such days... pretty much every World Championships I cover brings me to something like this. There you have at least one race a day, with bunch of other things to cover, it lasts 7-14days, your life is split between course, press center and coffee bar next to press center, with really late night dinner, after everything is finally done and sent, as only meal next to sandwich and chocolate bar or two during day. So after 2 weeks of life like this, you don't really feel like photography is so great thing

So for me it normally helps to be able to just drop camera for a week after this, and do something else (normally helluva lot of skiing or cycling, depending on season). And after few days, my trigger finger is itchy already

i feel the same, but for me i love the pressure aspect of it, i shot my first professional tennis tournament at the beginning of the year, 7 days straight, 9am-8pm shooting then till 1am processing, i had the best time and absolutely revelled in the pressure of getting images up within a few hours for publiations the next day, after that week i didnt feel like putting the camera down at all, infact i wanted more, it all depends what you want though, i could be very content if this was my life for 48weeks of the year and its my goal to do this within 5 years.

From a prsonal perspective though and shooting for fun i rarely process, ill shoot, sort and delete and thats it.

My thoughts would be - try to manage the amount you PP. Taking 2000 photos and PPing them all is a lot of work but being realistic, out of that 2000, how many are really worth PP?

I went through the same thing. That's why I began to shoot large format film instead. I go out and take maybe 2 shots every time out. I focus completely on crafting those shots. I use my DSLR and lenses to take snapshots of my baby, but I don't bring it on trips anymore. Just too little yield and too many shots.

Shoot less I guess. I get burnt out too. I have 2 small children and want even candid shots of them coloring to be perfect. But when I get burnt out I pull out my Rebel and put it in auto mode and shoot away--I just don't have the time for all the PP of just regular pics of my kids. Of course there are plenty of beautiful ones to make up for it. I think everyone needs downtime.

I feel you, and it is tough. I do this professionally and our six studios will output near 40,000 images a month in the busy season, this does not take into account the sports, candids, on-locations, etc. Personally I may need to edit near 4000 shots per month. UGH!!!!

I have taken the stance of shoot less, shoot better, get it right the first time. Shoot it like it was film. The result is LESS editing, and my shots can then go from camera to lab. (they do color correction, sharpening, soft focus, vignettes, etc for me)

I'm not complaining about this, even though it might sound like that. I actually like this too. Afterall, if I wouldn't, I would be doing something else But with all that hectic, with people seating on your back, bugging you why photos are not there yet, when race ended 30sec ago already, it gets a bit stressful.

primoz wrote in post #5736998
bugging you why photos are not there yet, when race ended 30sec ago already

The drive-thru generation strikes again