This year has been a strange one for me. Impart because I released my memoir and then crashed hard into a creative depression I just wasn’t expecting which resulted in a large loss of interest in my photography career. For those of you who know me I am very photographically active the spring through the fall and this year I have barely touched a camera.

In fact I am calling it an off year. A gap. A Break. A mental health vacation if you will.

I have put all of me into this business for years and the pandemic, inflation, etc has taken a toll on just trying to keep it functioning and operational. I am mentally exhausted more often than not and I have months where I dream of closing the LLC and doing this for fun again.

You see photography lost a lot of it’s fun for me when it became a business, when I had to make profits for operational costs and the like. When the stress of a pandemic was a real threat to years, and years of hard work.

I miss just feeling a creative urge, grabbing the camera, calling up some friends or models and doing the shoot and bringing my vision to life without the hassle of how it can earn a profit or whether it’s worth it to do or give it away for free.

This year I had high hopes going in, but I didn’t anticipate the absolute low I would hit when I completed and released my book. It killed my drive creatively and my ambitions were more to survive until I had some idea for what was next.

I was so low that the idea of doing shoots for clients was unappealing so I just stopped booking sessions for the year. Somewhere around May it hit me that maybe I need a year off. Maybe this is that year to take time to not shoot or just shoot things that I want regardless of profit or how my business fares. (I won’t make a profit this year, I may not even break even on my bills and thats ok— I need this break.)

It was hard to admit to myself that I am burnt out, that I am depressed, and that if I kept pushing they way I have the last few years I would be signing the death warrant of the dream I have tirelessly been working to build. Change can be a good thing and I hope a year off brings me into a different and better place come 2023.