Orange County | Los Angeles | San Diego | Everywhere | Wedding Photographer » days off http://hanssietrainorphotography.com Wedding Photography by Hanssie Trainor Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:00:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 my life: dealing with burn out (mandatory furloughs) http://hanssietrainorphotography.com/2009/12/my-life-dealing-with-burn-out-mandatory-furloughs/ http://hanssietrainorphotography.com/2009/12/my-life-dealing-with-burn-out-mandatory-furloughs/#comments Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:47:46 +0000 htrainor http://hanssietrainorphotography.com/?p=2509 When you work from home, there are no days off. Even if I hired on a full time housekeeper, chef, and personal assistant. And if I threw my laptop, phone, and iPhone into the ocean, I still wouldn’t have a day off. Too much to do. Every day is consumed with the day job, homeschooling, cleaning, cooking, mothering, wife-ing and every night is editing, blogging, brainstorming and creating. In the in between times, there’s also network meetings, planning Shootouts, Choir Practices, and of course, Facebooking and Twittering.

So, every 4 months or so, I get burnt out. My to do list seems like an endless, reproducing monster that is covered in scratches, scribbles and tears. The top of my desk is piled with papers and post-its, pens and camera gear, markers and discs. My house and car are deplorable messes and my refrigerator is empty. When my world is in this state, I take a few moments, freak out and then stick my nose to the grindstone and start again.

Every other month, I force myself to have a furlough day. Joe Photo organizes a club on the [b]school called, “Day Trippin’” It’s basically a playdate for photographers. It’s also my mandatory day off. I made a commitment to go no matter how long my to do list is, how high the laundry is piled up and how many emails I have to write.

It forces me to pause and let my creative side play for the day. November’s Day Trip was to the streets of Laguna.

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Since I am always shooting people, I tried to challenge myself to only shoot objects.

“The Loose Screw…literally.”
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I had to break my “objects only” challenge when I saw “The Cowboy.”
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