SPRING BREAK.
Spring break (also known as March break, spring vacation, Mid-Term Break, study week, reading week, reading period, or Easter holidays in the United States and some parts of Canada) is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in various countries in the northern hemisphere.
Or if you do photography like myself, it can also just simply mean taking a short mental break. I have also mentioned in a past blog post that every photographer hits a wall, or draws a blank at one point or another. You can read the post via this link: ARE YOU IN A PHOTOGRAPHY RUT? HERE ARE SOME TIPS THAT MIGHT HELP.
The one thing that photographers can struggle with from time to time is inspiration, or slight burnout. Especially for those that do photography as a hobby, they can start to have questions such as. Where can I go shoot? What can I shoot? How can I shoot this? When can I shoot? And so on.
The questions above are just a few examples that can allow one to second-guess themselves and their photography work if they allow it.
In my past blog post that I mentioned above, I talk about three things that one can do.
1) Walk Away
2) Work on your backend
3) Rethink your plans and goals
Lets just say that once again I am doing the above three once again. If you are wondering or saying to yourself “Not again?” Then my answer will be simply “yes… again.” And to be totally honest taking a break once in a while is totally fine to do actually.
You can take a “mental break” once in a while. Some of you also might be thinking or saying the following. “But it’s spring time, the leaves on the trees are coming back and the weather is starting to get nice for outdoor photography.”
To that statement I will say, “Yes… That is true.” But in my case, while most people and photography hobbyist took the winter off due to extreme cold and snowstorms. I was out in quite a few of those snowstorms shooting away. You can see some of my winter photography work via my Behance page at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/15007111/The-Winter-Snowstorms-of-2014
The photos in this series were to be part of a blog post that never got published. Sometimes as a photographer and blogger. With blogging being a part of my backend work while doing photography. Sometimes a blog post that I work on may actually never get to go live on my websites blog page: https://jpegimagephotography.com/blog/
It’s almost like being the “Editor and Chief” of a major newspaper. For there will be such moments that the newspaper is all set to go online or to the printers for publication. All the pages are set and formatted, then all of a sudden a breaking story comes in and the original headline that was to be the first page story gets bumped off for the new breaking news story that just happened.
In a nutshell you can/could call it “unpublished work” from a bloggers/photographers point of view. More blogger than photographer to be more precise granted the photos were posted on my Behance page: https://www.behance.net/jpegimagephotography and it was listed as a project. Under the project title “The Winter Snowstorms of 2014.”
Witch in turn would have become a blog posting with a back story on the photos and the subject. The subject being all the snowfall that we had this past winter, but it never came to be. It does happen from time to time. I can’t even count how many photos I have taken, processed in post production, and never posted. And that is actually normal for any photographer.
But to a small degree, that was kind of a warning to me. For I usually make it a good habit I feel to post on my blog a photography subject at lease once a month. Granted… I did make a blog post and posted it for the month of February, but it was not about a snowstorm.
Since the start of this year I have been on the go photographing various stories and subjects. And I have not really taken a small break to plan my next photography project. Plus my backend work, managing my website and to a small extent my blogging started to suffer a small bit. As well I was running out of ideas on what to shoot next. Plus I wanted to explore a few different venues as well location wise.
Granted I did travel to Washington, DC recently. And it was a good trip, with very good people to travel with but at the same time I found it lacking. I was supposed to travel to Philadelphia as the next city to photograph, but I turned that trip down. As you see step one of “walking away” from my photography was already starting to happen and I really did not notice it back then.
Then came part two “working on my backend.” I started working more on the behind the scenes items such as making much-needed adjustments on my website, and my home network.
And at this point in time I am currently working on part three “rethinking my plans and goals” for this year. When this year had stated I had made plans for what I wanted to do with my photography and I was quite excited about my thoughts and projects that I had planned and wanted to work on.
But recently I had a few items that I came up and they have not forced me to rethink my original plans. It did upset me, but when you think about it stuff like this happens in life. For me it will be a slight setback from my original timeframe. But if I adjust accordingly then hopefully everything will come into place and proceed well.
So taking just a little time off from my photography to work on all the things that need to be worked on will work out in the long run. And hopefully I will have some photography work to showcase for you all sometime next month in my next blog post.
To everyone that feels just a little burned out and think that they might have lost their creative edge. The best advice I can give you is the following.
“Just take a short break, don’t quit. Just take a small break, a few days maybe a week or more. Whatever amount of time feels right to you. Use whatever time you feel that you need to refocus. If you are passionate about photography, you will be back at it again soon.”
Trust me. I will be back to photographing very soon.
JPEG IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY 