In this week’s podcast, we talk about burnout verse resting. Creative burnout and creative rest may look similar on the surface, but they come from very different places. Burnout is the slow unraveling of connection to your work . It shows up when the camera feels heavy, ideas feel stale, and even looking at images becomes tiring. It often shows up after long periods of constant output or comparison, when making photographs becomes more about productivity than discovery.
Creative rest, on the other hand, is a conscious act of stepping back. It’s not quitting or losing interest; it’s giving your creative mind the quiet space it needs to breathe. Rest might mean spending time with other art forms, walking without your camera, revisiting old prints, or simply allowing yourself to not make anything for a while.
Photography, like all creative practices, moves in cycles. The pause between moments like the space between frames on a roll of film. Learning to tell the difference between burnout and rest lets us return to the work with more clarity, joy, and curiosity. Rest isn’t the absence of creativity. It’s the soil that allows creativity to grow again.