When deciding whether or not I would take 2 years to study photography at college, one of the things in the 'against' column was that I may well ruin photography for myself. Being 32 at the time, I had seen plenty of friends head off to University after leaving school, get a degree and then do not a lot with it. One of the recurring reasons was that by the time they'd finished the course, they were entirely sick of the subject. 4 years of study and all the accompanying stress can really put you off something.
Was I going to do that with photography? I had only relatively recently discovered photography and it was one of the best thing to happen to me. Did I really want to taint it with 2 years of intense higher learning? What if I ended up like so many of the people I've met over the years and didn't want to look at a camera by the end of the course? What would I do then? It took me 30 years to find photography. How long would it be before I found something else I related to as much?
The other concern was that after college, I would end up getting bored with photography as it became just another way to pay the bills. Back at high school, I remember hearing a friend's dad, who was a family portrait photographer, talk in very unappealing terms about his job. That's maybe why it took me so long to try it out. But I think it's very easy to get into a pattern of photographing the same things. Especially in a fairly small town that lacks the opportunities that bigger cities have. And if I were to fall into the pattern of photographing the same things, photography just becomes any other job. I'd be as well trying to find an office job and do photography on the side. I'd get paid holidays and sick pay then.
My entire working life has been low level jobs. Barman, shop assistant, warehouse worker, call centre worker. My CV reads like a 'recommended for you' section of the job centre for those that left school at 16. As well as being low paid, these jobs didn't challenge me creatively. They were certainly challenging in that they often involved long hours, back breaking labour and repetitive tasks. That's the wrong kind of challenging as far as I'm concerned. Photography was a way of escaping that. A way of coming home from a job feeling energised rather than depressed. We only get one shot at life. Why spend any of it hating your job?
So I need to keep things interesting. To keep things fun. Anything less than that would be a betrayal of myself and my plans.
Not all jobs will be fun or interesting. Even ones that should be, might go wrong and become stressful. I know that. You do what you can to mitigate that and take it on the chin when things go awry.
Throughout college, I made sure to get out and photograph for the enjoyment, whenever I could. Even during the most stressful projects (our dreaded Graded Unit), I made sure to take breaks from the serious business at hand and take photographs to enjoy the experience.
The Old Church in Muthil. I photographed this while visiting my old family home for, "Paul: Memories of My Father". It takes a completely different tone to everything else I was working on at the time. It kinda needed to, given the subject matter I was immersing myself in. It was a nice change to photograph something just for the fun of it.
I felt I did a good job with this while at college. It was something I did beginning to end. It's something I've done a much poorer job of since leaving college. With the exception of my holiday photos (which I don't count as everyone takes holiday photos, right?), the photos at the top of this post represent the only recreational photographs I've taken in months. Burnout from college was indeed a factor. However 3 of the 4 projects on my website were all initiated after I graduated from college so that's a positive.
I've also made sure to get photographs for myself while I'm doing jobs for clients. These are photographs that are of no use to the client. Usually abstract, they serve as mementos from the day that I'll keep private and maybe release from my death bed. Photographing for myself is important. Not as important as photographing for the paying client of course but keeping myself happy is as important a life goal as any other I can think of.
The photographs at the top of the post also represent the last time we had good weather. It's been stormy for a while now. To add to that I've been ill for a month. So maybe the lack of recent photos isn't all burnout and laziness. But the chest infection is gone and bad weather won't last forever (though sometimes in Scotland it feels like it). So I'll soon find out for sure.