Photography work vs personal projects

[LongLensPhotography]

How do you all working professionally maintain the balance and plan your own projects and time to market it?

I find I'm getting sucked into shooting houses and all that editing chore and not much at all gets done elsewhere. Even if I get somewhere, which is almost invariable very from where I'm based, I hardly get it edited or posted. That seems to be doing no favours to my web traffic too.

I could block some days off, but then they can be rainy in the end and only good for that interior... And there is nothing decent close by to go at short notice. Maybe brexit will give me an incentive to move to the alps.

What strategies do you use to make sure it all makes sense?

 

[boyfalldown]

Is it a living or a hobby ? You need to decide that. Incidently I went 2 years without ever taking a photo for me. I’m not the only paid photographer with a similar story

 

[Raymond Lin]

Take a holiday, go away with your camera. That's what I do.

 

[nandbytes]

Basically don't marry your mistress
Photography is mine, I turned my previous hobby into a job now I am married to it. It's turned into a love-hate relationship and I don't really do much for myself in that area.

 

[jono2002]

Some people have told me in the past they have done it by shooting in the short dead times between clients, waiting or traveling to locations. (Try to get as much done in camera)

Also sometimes the projects span years because of the time pressures of the paid work but end with great results.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

I left paid photography and ended up making much more money. A guy I worked for told me that you shouldn't try to make money from your hobby because you'll come to hate it. Start something as a way to make money and you may come to love it. Worked for me.

 

[droj]

Some people seem to handle running a paying work channel alongside a personal project channel - like Rob Hudson in Cardiff -

http://www.cardiff-weddingphotographer.com/
http://www.robhudsonlandscape.net/

Maybe pulling it off is partly to do with temperament, and partly with vision, but so many factors might intrude ...

 

[Kell]

The last two professionals I worked with both had personal photography projects that coincided with their (non-photography) interests.

One was a keen cyclists and (one of) his personal projects was done while on a cycling holiday.

The other is involved with Born-Free and a lot of his personal work is done while volunteering with them.

I guess that speaks volumes about having to combine two things to make it work.