Combating creative burnout: tips for jumpstarting your imagination

Creativity is the life force of a photographer's work. The chances are that when you're feeling innovative, you're attracting more clients and producing projects that feel fulfilling and enjoyable to deliver. So what happens when creative burnout takes hold?

Though it can be difficult to define, burnout symptoms can look like physical, emotional and creative exhaustion when it comes to work. You're drained of ideas and are probably worried about the consequences, and it can take a long time to recover. Those with artistic careers are often at risk and knowing what to do about it can be tough if you need to carry on working in the studio or in the field to maintain a steady flow of income.

A growing number of photographers are facing challenging pressures, such as continually creating new work, working longer hours, undertaking emotionally taxing assignments in hard-hitting environments, maintaining a business in a competitive industry, and dealing with demanding clients. There's also the added expectation of creating meaningful content for social media. It might seem like too much to ask to be consistently creative, and it's important to keep your love of the craft alive despite it all.

Professional photographers with years of experience are no strangers to creative burnout either, and we asked two Canon Ambassadors to share their own stories. London-based Hungarian fashion and portrait photographer Wanda Martin has a client list including Dior, Atlantic Records and Burberry. Swedish nature photographer Jonas Classon is fascinated by birds and his award-winning images have been exhibited all over the world.

Here, they discuss how to recognise the signs of a creative drought, tips for recovering from burnout, and advice on how to avoid it in the first place.

A classic sign of burnout to watch out for is when your photography becomes unimaginative and stops evolving. Wanda found herself caught in a cycle of repetition, during which she unintentionally began shooting in the same way for clients – a sign of creative burnout after periods of intense work.

"I started creating similar editorials and the same poses, angles and lights were returning, which is great up until a certain point, where you can say it's your authorship and signature style and your own aesthetic," she continues. "But it is a very fine line between having a style and being boring and repetitive."

Meanwhile, Jonas experienced burnout when he received a lot of publicity for his second book and for his great grey owl photograph, Night Hunter, which won the Animals in their Environment category at the Siena International Photo Awards 2020.

Jonas coped and recovered by immersing himself in the calm atmosphere of nature, the environment that initially inspired his craft.

"The way I got through it was just to go out in nature, find peace in my soul to recover and hear my own thoughts," he says. "I just needed some time to reflect on what was happening and what I was doing, to find my own path again. I didn't touch my camera for six months. I couldn't. It was impossible as I just got panic attacks. I built up this big cloud of expectations that I needed to deliver.

"After six months of just thinking and working in nature, I realised that I will not change anything, and that I will try to walk the same road that I've been walking for the past 10 years. My solution is to turn off the computer, let the camera rest on the bench, and walk out into nature," he adds.

The Covid-19 lockdown coincidentally gifted Wanda with the opportunity to revisit a personal project that rebooted her creative spark. "Creating during lockdown helped me realise that previously I had been focusing way too much on commercial work and that eventually resulted in repetition in my photography," she says. "I'd been working as a professional photographer for 14 years and, during lockdown, I had the chance to revisit my roots and work on this specific personal, conceptual project called Songs of Innocence and Experience. I was on my own and found myself with plenty of free time on my hands."

Carving out time for hobbies is something both photographers find vital for having a fresh outlook on their work. Jonas finds that fishing gives him the headspace away from photography to come back to his camera renewed.

"When you have 10 hours in a boat trying to catch fish then you start deep thinking, not just creating and producing. You free your mind and make that space in your head," he says. "It's been helpful for me to just create periods of time and space, because that's when the best ideas come. Find something that you can do, rest your mind creatively and just find inner peace and complete silence."

Wanda agrees, except she finds solace in going out and meeting other people. "I find it very helpful to put work aside for a few hours, days or sometimes even a couple of weeks and go out to see live bands, watch movies, plays, exhibitions and travel, and to socialise, meet people and talk," she says. "Even though this doesn't sound like work directly, it is still deeply inspiring and you can think of it as part of your research and recharge at the same time.

"I think the burnout can happen when you lose your passion for what you used to love most. When photography becomes a job instead of your hobby, that's the tricky part – when you have to make a living off it, pay the bills and sometimes say yes to jobs that aren't necessarily creatively fulfilling. I do think the most important thing is to shoot projects for yourself for your own happiness and mindfulness."