navigating burn-out as an artist

i’ve been photographing and playing around with cameras since i can remember. it always felt natural to me, as natural as breathing and as natural as existing. picking up a camera never came with any questions. it never came with even a hint of doubt or confusion as to what i should photograph, it never took me long to find things i felt were exciting and beautiful enough to be captured. i have always been a curious person and like a scientist uses his microscope, i used my camera as my greatest tool.

over and over again, over the span of the last years, i got asked how i started out as a photographer, how i got to where i was, how it developed and i could never quite give an answer. of course, i had a good-enough answer on auto-pilot, but the truth had always been something that felt unexplainable and somewhat spiritual. from the moment i picked up my first camera, there was nothing else to do, it was a natural progression. i found myself in the middle of an ocean, floating effortlessly, swimming with the waves (although this scenario might be scary to some, imagine it without fear and visualize it as something peaceful). i was dipped into an ocean of possibilities and i didn’t have to think, my passion and curiosity were the waves and the water beneath me carrying me along. there was never, not even for a single moment, a question about whether this was what i was supposed to do. not for a minute. it was natural, like breathing. you don’t question if breathing is what you are supposed to do.

my passion carried me along and along, like the waves, i created, i explored, i improved and i continued doing what felt the most natural to me. it was a natural process for me and i often found myself beaming with joy from one ear to the other, asking myself how on earth i got so lucky to find what i loved so early on in life, how lucky i was to be in such profound connection and contact to this vast ocean that seemed to only be mine. i spoke and thought about this often. it felt like i had won all that there is to win in the world.

with time and time, i took the effortless floating and feeling of being carried for granted. i got hungry, i craved for more. i started forcefully navigating the waves left and right, wanting them to flow faster, to take me left, and then more to the right again, and then flying forward, even more quickly this time. once or twice, i wondered why the ocean couldn’t have been a different shade of blue and appear more like a different ocean i had once seen somewhere.

one day, i was still floating on, from the distance a glimpse of something new emerged. i had only seen blue ocean waves for years now, how come i now saw something different approaching? it didn’t take long and the ocean softly brought me closer to the shore. i didn’t want to leave, i begged the ocean. i didn’t want to step ashor, i had many plans, i was just getting started, i was feeling ambitious. but the ocean didn’t listen, and each wave pulled me closer in until i felt my feet feel the sand and each wave crashed onto the surface beneath me. my comfortable waves had deserted me.

‘‘i’ll just go back, i’ll get carried back where i belong’’, i said. it felt like the obvious choice, the right thing to do. of course, i would just go right back.

i only missed one crucial new-born fact, i was now scared, petrified even, to make my way back to where i just previously came from and no matter how much i tried to move and swim back, i landed back on shore every time.

i hope that to some, this analogy made sense, and even if it didn’t, it felt hauntingly beautiful to write it. it came to me as i was writing and i almost couldn’t believe how true and fitting it felt. my craft, as a photographer, as an artist and as a creative, came natural to me, it came into my life like a force field and at the same time as subtle as something that was simply gently awaken within me one day, all while slumbering inside of me since the moment i was born. the gift of passion, curiosity, and simple peace of finding something you love with all of your heart is truly a divine and spiritual thing, we often cannot explain it even though the world is full of it. there are so many words in the world, yet it’s complicated to piece them together in a way that matches the feeling. it’s sacred, there’s no other way to describe it.

as beautiful and as divine and as precious this gift is, we still live in a worldly place where we can often, without conciously knowing, go against the natural flow of things. the natural flow of creation and all things sacred. we can hustle, we can push, we can pull, we can overdo, we can overtake and test even such a powerful otherworldly energy and transmute it. this is what happened to me. the beautiful, natural and divine and as-natural-as-breathing energy of passion that once filled each and every cell, felt pushed, felt dragged and felt exploited, until it one day, decided to draw away after not being honored or nurtured in a healthy way. i had burned out, the ocean made it clear that i took the effortlessness of floating for granted, without ever slowing down and asking it what it needed, what felt natural. i had gotten greedy, scheduling my days to the brim, creating in ways that could have never been healthy nor possible in the long run, i had misused and traded my passion to go along with trends, to create what others wanted to see, what got me more recognition and validation, and worst of all, i slowly progressed from taking the raw authentic passion that carried me all along, and changed, bit by bit and altered it into something else that felt more fitting to the world i thought i wanted to be a part of.

now looking back, it was no surprise the ocean got tired and upset. ‘‘why don’t you love me as i am? why do you try to change me? am i not enough for you?’’, i can almost hear her ask. ‘‘i cannot go at full speed all the time, i cannot keep up, i want to be nurtured, i want to be loved. and most importantly, i want you to be okay with who i really am.’’

i recently started doing something quite silly, well, it felt silly at first, now i ask myself why i hadn’t thought of doing this sooner. i started speaking to my passion for photography (hello, ocean analogy!) and i started envisioning nurturing a relationship with it. like a friend, a partner or a family member, i talk to it, i write to it and i tune into it. and especially now, like someone would kindly speak to a displeased and frightened cat after accidentally stepping on it’s tail, i talk to my passion of photography like i would to a friend whose feelings i unwittingly hurt. i reflect, i apologize and i don’t pressure it. i don’t push, pull and force anymore. a force like the ocean would never oblige just that easily.

as of now, you can still find me at the shore. my hair is damp and salty. i’ve tried to force my way back into the ocean a million times. i have now decided to sit here, i feel the sand beneath me. every few moments or so, a wave gently makes it’s way to me, to slightly touch my feet and then pulling back into the wide ocean again. i sit here, and i wait, and for the first time, i talk. i talk to the ocean, i talk to the waves. i turn my attention to it and i try to regain it’s friendship and it’s trust. and i know that one day, sooner or later, likely a day where i least expect it, a wave more powerful than the ones before will take me in from where i was patiently sitting and waiting in the sand, and it will take me with it into the middle of the ocean again.

‘‘thank you for regaining my trust, my friend.’’