Once upon a time, I was drunk at a gig, and I asked a gig photographer, “so how does one do what you do?”
He said, “Find yourself some bands to photograph.” So I did.
What followed was a really lovely, but also really intense, year and a half of photographing bands and working two jobs. Credit where credit’s due, I really loved it at the time: I had the chance to go to hundreds of great gigs, and met many fantastic people along the way. Some of the artists I photographed play bigger stages than ever before now.
In a sense, I became a victim of my path being quickly successful. I got good word of mouth, and in a matter of few months, I was booked out. I was taking photos every evening, on top of a day job that also required my focus and attention. A year and a half before, this turn of events would have been a dream scenario. I had even considered switching careers… had it started to pay at any point.
But then, out of the blue, I felt like I didn’t want to pick that camera up ever again. Even the prospect of doing exactly that filled me with dread I didn’t even know I could feel about something that I loved. And recently, my camera quite literally broke – and I didn’t have that pressing feeling to go and repair it, which made me sit with it for a little longer.
If you’re thinking it’s your usual “imposter syndrome” essay, I can assure you it is not. There are a lot of things I feel I am not good enough at, but I knew I was a good photographer, at least as far as technical proficiency goes. I made sure of it.
But if you take a microscope to this entire situation, none of it was particularly surprising. I mentioned to friends that I needed to “maybe take a break” before, which I never really acted on. You can’t – things speed up, and in your head, you can’t just risk that opportunity because maybe it will lead you to a bigger, better one.
I ultimately worked two jobs, with the standards set by me, myself and I – and unfortunately all of them are an insufferable perfectionist. I sometimes came back home from a gig after midnight to not sleep at all, and to deliver the photos at 7am the next day, carefully edited, because of course I am not taking any shortcuts… and semi-conscious, without sleep, I still turned up to that day job. I cared a little bit too much for what I was receiving in return. And no one should have to do it this way (so if you’re reading and considering acting in senseless ways, please don’t) – unless it’s your choice and/or you’re being properly compensated for it, I can’t fault you for making your own decisions.
I also found that it wasn’t a lifestyle match. Facing your dream career head on can have a sobering effect when you crash into things you didn’t expect. It certainly did for me. And as a person who has learned (and had to unlearn) that sometimes you need to suffer all the time to get what you want: it’s okay to want money, and stability, and some predictability of your schedule (like free evenings and weekends) that allows you to speak to your family, have hobbies and enjoy life. It’s okay not to suffer for what you make. Like, it’s really allowed. Trust me.
The whole starving artist idea is mythologising a lot of pain, and it’s also incredibly toxic to those who can’t afford being one (because paradoxically, a lot of starving artists have resources to weather any storm that wreaks havoc on their lives, and you understand that pretty quickly when you do creative stuff for long enough). If you come from a working-class family and have to rely on yourself, you’ve got no other choice than to make that happen, and sometimes the cost of that is not trying to make it big.
When you start, you have this bold idea of creative vision you’d like to maintain. It turned out that when you do this as a professional, you have to deal with people’s requests that sometimes are against what you think of as good. Then again, at the end of the day, it’s their vision you’re in service of. Photography is a service job. But sometimes, it was more requests and changes than they ever paid for, if they paid at all.
Compromise is fair. You should be striving for compromise, and there is often a good reason for it, other than just keeping the harmony. Sometimes the scope you set for yourself is far bigger than anything required, sometimes you work with people with more experience who know more than you. And even when I disagreed with someone on quality, I have learned crucial people skills that I will take with me elsewhere.
But hear me out: compromise it is not when you’re never getting anything in particular out of it. That is just saying yes and hoping for the best. It means you leave the decision about your output (and ultimately, what goes in your portfolio, or whether you’re even interested in it) up to other people. And you’re allowed to have input on collaborative projects. If you’re not, you better be paid right for it, or receive something else you need in return.
Two years have passed since that last gig that made me decide I needed to change what I was doing. For these two years, I have picked up the camera only twice: once, because someone who I’d worked with before asked me and they were good people; for the second time, because I wanted to help out someone who was starting out.
Both of these gigs made me feel good in the end, even if I spent time dreading them beforehand – but I appreciate it had more to do with the atmosphere and the working conditions. The second one will be a great closing memory for me; I am comfortable with the fact that it was probably a fond farewell to gig photography. I would be happy never to snap another photo ever again – which probably means I am still deeply burned out.
I discovered that I am way more comfortable as a person who enjoys a gig in the audience, too – because my love for (live) music will never change. And sometimes, making something a job will suck the joy out of it, and if you bring all your misplaced intensity to it, you will burn out. These days, I turn up to a set, drink in hand (I did that with the camera too, sometimes to calm down my nerves, which probably wasn’t a great habit either way) and I am free to dance and enjoy and experience the wonder that comes with a great performance of the music I love.
In hindsight, I had to do it that way. I strived for a creative career for almost the entirety of my twenties, but I am unfortunately a stubborn person (which you’d have figured out from all of the behaviour I described above). Heeding warnings? I don’t know her. No one could tell me shit. My own father could not tell me shit, and he was right trying to. Maybe that’s also the beauty of recklessness we all have when we’re twenty-something.
But some people say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, and I agree. I did it for a little too long.
The signs of burnout were showing in small ways when I was backstage, photographing one of my biggest gigs to date, but I put a good face on every time I decided to push through and ignore them. The camera was ready, and I made it through a narrow passage to prep for the shoot. As I walked up the metal staircase after a stressful afternoon of trying to get to the tour manager and sorting out the formalities, I thought, “this is a job like any other.” I put the strap around my neck and lifted the camera up to my face. The magic was gone.
Now I can’t really wonder what if – I did it. And the thing I’d hoped would be a dream job just wasn’t a match.
Would it be any different if I took better care of my mental health? I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe not. I ran into a few non-negotiables too many, and it’s like dating someone new: you have a honeymoon period, but eventually you figure out if you’re compatible. And sometimes, you have to make a hard choice. Perhaps I didn’t love it enough, after all.
Maybe someday, in five or ten or twenty years, I will feel like picking that camera back up. For now, the camera is broken, and I was comfortable with it sitting there, unrepaired – which I think speaks volumes. I decided to give myself a year to figure out what would be a thing that actually suits me.
And this might well be an outlet to document getting there.
This could have been a TikTok video but I cba to put my makeup on. Sorry!