Five Stages, The Crushed Soul: or, I just realized it wasn’t the kit lens after all

The photographer honestly thought they were getting somewhere. Then it all went bad.

(Image: R.Crapnell)

All of a sudden, the siblings weren’t interested in another shoot and of fifty images sent away to national competitions only one was accepted and that was because it entered surreptitiously in the newbie section of the Outer Digby Rotary Club Art Show where an auntie sat on the panel. Even then it was just an acceptance.

Seems like the kit lens wasn’t the only thing between the Gear Snob and being the next Steve Parish.

The Prosumer all too often ends up a Crushed Soul, though the timing and severity can vary greatly depending on the photographer’s predisposition to Gear Snobbery and Prosumerism. The Crushed Soul is what can happen after the goodwill and wonder of the meteoric Awakening Artist and Gear Snob days pass and the gap between perception and capability becomes too wide to ignore even for the Prosumer.

As image quality hovers around "pretty good" the reality begins to sink in that competence can't be bought and faking it isn't making it. It'll take years to push through to "really quite good" and perhaps "bloody brilliant" is forever beyond the photographer's reach. Worst of all, the Crushed Soul may well look at all that expensive gear and just give up, selling it all at auction and buying a game console or Harley Davidson instead (depending on how bad a Gear Snob they had been). But that's okay, the rest of us who push on will scoop that cheap second hand gear up quickly enough.

The Crushed Soul can even be a former Prosumer who actually made it into professional photography and then managed to turn photography into a job. These are the guys who end up grinding away at weddings, family shoots and baby showers when they really wanted to be Ansell Adams, Joe McNally, Steve McCurry or whoever it is that shoots for Hustler. To these folk go the dubious distinction of turning art into work.

These could possibly be the true Lost Souls of photography, clocking on to do something they don’t like all week and then suffering the injustice of not wanting to pick up a camera on the weekend (or more likely on Monday or possibly Wednesday afternoon) because they can't stand the thought of even one more click. At least if they had a real job they could still be stressed and bored during the week yet shoot what they wanted on the weekend.

But the Crushed Soul is not inevitable state. Or at least, it need not be a lasting one. In fact, the brutal return to reality that often heralds this phase can be a great boon to an amateur photographer's personal practice. In the best case, this can trigger a return to the stuff that the photographer actually wants to shoot, rather than what they think they should be shooting.

If the Crushed Soul can lift themselves out of their funk, then the long, warm and fuzzily golden phase of the True Enthusiast beckons...

Tips for a Crushed Soul from a bloke who has been there:

Take the criticism on the chin and move on. That's it, really.