When I signed up for art classes in college, working on my Photography degree at Utah State, I would often fill up my schedule as much as I could. I looked at my other friends taking 3-5 major classes each semester so I always worked to mimic that with my art classes. Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize at the time was that my classes were very different than other major classes. I was in 3 hour art classes that required continuous creativity and brain storming and creating. We had projects due almost weekly in each type of class I was taking (photography, drawing, 2D art). It might sound nice to some of you, but we didn’t have tests. Instead we had class critiques! This is where you would pin your work up on the board in front of the class and then wait for the class to tell you everything you did well and did poorly on the project you’d slaved away at. I had a variety of professors that had many different points of view than me, which at times really helped to shape me as an artist. Other times it was super deflating to work hard on a project and have it be criticized without any positive feedback at all. Due to the crazy schedule I had signed myself up for, and creative fatigue, it was easy to slide into the routine of creating art that I knew that my professor wanted to see. I felt my joy and creativity slowly dissolve during my time in college, and the hardest part was not having any idea of how to counteract the effects. Lots of my classmates felt the same deflating effects of having your passion turn into a grade.

Pick activities for your free time that give you joy and energize you.

WHAT I WISH I KNEW IN COLLEGE

Now that I have graduated college, and pursued my photography career, I have learned a lot about how to balance creativity along with my business. It might sound like a dream to some people to be creative everyday for work. And I’m pretty lucky to get to flex my creative, problem solving muscles every single day. But what I am learning more in more in my new wedding photography adventure is that creativity is finite. Joy, energy and passion aren’t never ending resources. Just like anything in life, you have to feed your photography passion to maintain energy in your personal work and business. Time invested and given to your business is time well spent, but without a balance of time given to yourself, your joy will not be sustained.

I really struggled in college to remember my love of photography, and often would spend late nights in the photo lab developing film or making prints and feeling my joy being stripped away from my passion. I didn’t realized that I had no intentional outlet to refill my creativity. My work was always best at the beginning of the semester, after I had spent a summer exploring, adventuring and meeting new people. A creative mind is a well balance mind. The more I have implemented hobbies, self care and personal maintenance into my schedule, the more my business and creativity has thrived. I schedule time to take walks, go to the gym, babysit friends children, take classes for things I’ve never done before, cook new recipes, read new books, take trips to new places and meet new people. All of these things are things that fuel my mind and work. When ever I feel the effects of burnout, is the same time I shut off social media, and get outside. Picking activities for my free time that gives me joy and energizes me has completely changed my work and my outlook on photography. Being a photographer and loving my job doesn’t mean I have to be working on my business every single minute. Sometimes, working on myself is the best thing I can do for my business. Share your thoughts on self care in the comments below!

Joy and Energy for Photographers | How to refuel your creativity