K, the Leclerc stan 
doing the event today and I got anxious about it now, which is not great tbf
I know it's the same pattern I had with the fest a few months back. like I wanna do it bc I wanna help, so that is the motivation why I will be there, but I also think about how my intense year and a half doing photography work led to me not wanting to pick up a camera/dreading it
like one gig for someone who deserves the work that's done well is one thing, and it's not what burned me out before, my own stupidity and intensity and wanting to get away from day job did. so I am prepped and ready and I obviously will bring my best attitude and do the best work I can. but I really don't like this doomed/dread feeling that I've got inside my head now
tbf this will probably be the last gig I will do for a long while, if not forever
I think doing something for someone who has achieved organising something like this is a really nice way to go out of photography forever. I was thinking about it a lot and I think that is the right way to go
it's a cleaner way to break out of something than I used to love than how I ended it abruptly before. go help, go make it useful, then put the camera down for 10, 20 years, forever if I need to 😊
I had lots of fun shooting today - I felt accomplished, which did make me question, what would happen if I tested this under normal circumstances not overbooking and editing without sleep, cause maybe I did go from "this is fun" to martyrdom and then burnout because of my own chosen behaviour. but it also feels foolish to overlook the reality of the situation. so we leave this door open, I won't be actively searching for stuff to do, and I think that's okay now 💖
also I unexpectedly got to shoot pics of an artist that I was DYING to see live for ages?????????
overall I walked out of today happy u know. accomplished. vibes immaculate. this was really fun u know
also just looking at the pics and DAMN the upgraded camera is INSANEEEEEEEEEEEE
Matthew@kwas_na for what it's worth, i know you will totally smash it. the dread / anxiety will fade when you get there, you're totally capable of this. go for it.
@picard oh I know! I'm not questioning my technical capability, I am a good photographer, I know that. it's more about how picking up that camera makes me feel after I burned myself out, and I think this is a nice way to cleanly wrap it. i'll probably never do another gig after today and I've never been more at peace with it!
@kwas_na yeah that's how i understood what you wrote, not the technical but the feeling of remembered trauma of before. it does seem like a good way to close that chapter, in a more positive way rather than burning out and having those bad memories being the last thing you remember from it. this way is really good 🙂
@picard I think I burned out for all the wrong reasons - I don't want to make sacrifices to my lifestyle that come with working in music (see: late nights, weekends), I don't think photography as a job suits my personality (people!), and my main motivator to jump in headfirst was a desperate need for change because of how I felt I was treated in day job. now I realise that the way I went about that was unsustainable - I gave it my everything - but it was not a great choice in the first place 1/
@picard but today I wanna capture that good feeling of doing something new and fun one last time, the genre I like but it also is out of my comfort zone, the person I am doing it for is really nice, I am using a camera different to mine, so that comes together. I want a clean way for my memory to remember that skill as something I've done that I can let go of before I move into something new. I want to remember it fondly 💖
@kwas_na this is amazing, you've obviously thought so much about it and drawn all the right conclusions. i really hope it is everything you want tonight, and that you remember it even better than you are hoping right now 🙂