Finding Your Rhythm.
It's half past ten at night. I'm sitting at my desk, staring at a screen full of photographs I took eight hours ago. My eyes are burning. My back hurts. And I've just realised I've been clicking the same adjustment brush for the past five minutes without actually adjusting anything.
I was meant to finish editing at six. Then seven. Then eight. Now it's half ten and I'm not sure the edits I'm making are improvements anymore, or just changes for the sake of doing something.
This morning I was lying in a field at sunrise. Watching a fox move through the grass at the far edge of the field, unhurried, unbothered. I got a shot I was genuinely proud of. It felt like exactly what I'm meant to be doing. Tonight? I feel like a particularly inefficient robot who's forgotten why any of this matters.
Both of these moments are my business. The magical sunrise and the exhausted editing session. The part that feels like purpose and the part that feels like punishment. Learning to build a business is one thing. Learning to actually live in it is something else entirely.
The Myth I Believed
In my first few years I measured success by how much I was doing. How many shoots I'd booked. How many hours I'd worked. I wore exhaustion like a badge of honour. Proof I was serious. I'd check emails before I'd even got out of bed. Edit until my eyes were too tired to see properly. Work through weekends because that was when I finally had uninterrupted time. I told myself I'd ease off once I was established. But "enough" kept moving. "Established" was always just slightly out of reach.
What actually happened, I got really good at my work and really bad at living my life. I'd forget to eat lunch. Cancel plans. Lie awake at three in the morning mentally composing emails. My business was thriving. I was not. The worst part? I couldn't admit it. Because admitting you're struggling when you're doing the work you supposedly love feels like failure. But exhaustion doesn't care how much you love what you do. It'll flatten you either way.
The Day It Caught Up
I can tell you the exact moment I realised something had to change. I was on my way to a shoot. Beautiful morning, perfect light, exactly the kind of weather I dream about. I should have been excited. Instead, I felt nothing. Just a flat, grey absence of feeling. The client was lovely. The images turned out well. And I felt absolutely nothing about any of it. That terrified me more than any bad shoot ever had. I'd been running so hard for so long that I'd completely disconnected from why I was running in the first place. I'd built a business doing work I loved, and then I'd optimised all the love right out of it. On the drive home, I pulled into a layby and sat there staring at a hedgerow. Trying to figure out when exactly I'd stopped enjoying the thing I'd sacrificed so much to do.
What the Countryside Already Knew
The farmers I photograph understand rhythm in a way that most business advice completely ignores. They don't work the same hours in February as they do in May. They don't expect the same output in lambing season as they do in the quiet weeks of late autumn. The work changes because the land demands it, and they've learnt to move with that rather than against it. I'd watch this and think it was specific to farming. That my work followed different rules. It doesn't. I cannot make amazing photographs when the light is flat and everything feels wrong. The work knows when I'm forcing it. Just like you can't rush a field into yielding something it isn't ready to give, you can't rush creativity that needs time to form. Rhythm isn't a luxury you earn once you're established. It's the condition under which good work becomes possible at all.
What Rhythm Actually Means
Rhythm isn't routine. Routine is doing the same thing at the same time every day regardless of whether it makes sense. Rhythm is responding to the actual demands of your work and your life in ways that are sustainable. Some weeks I'm out shooting five days in a row. Other weeks I don't shoot at all. And sometimes, very occasionally, I take a day off, go for a walk without my camera, and exist as a human being rather than a business entity. Not perfect. Not consistent. Just sustainable.
My rhythm changes with the seasons because the work demands it. Winter is quieter. I use it for planning and the slower thinking that gets crowded out when everything is urgent. Spring is extraordinary light and admin accumulating in an alarming pile. Autumn is my favourite time to shoot but also when I'm usually most tired, which means I have to be especially deliberate about rest. None of this matches the productivity advice that tells you consistency is everything. But that advice wasn't written for work that depends on what a particular October morning decides to do with the light.
The Question That Tells You Everything
When I'm trying to figure out whether I'm maintaining a sustainable rhythm or sliding back toward that layby feeling, I ask myself one question. Am I still enjoying the work? Not every moment. Not every task. But overall, generally, is there still something worth getting up for in what I do?
If the answer is yes, my rhythm is probably fine, however chaotic it looks from the outside.
If the answer is no. If I'm going through the motions, feeling that flat grey absence, that's my signal. Not that something is wrong with the work. That something is wrong with the rhythm around the work. Maybe a day off. Maybe turning down the next booking even though the money would be helpful. Maybe just a proper meal and eight hours of sleep.
The specific solution changes. The signal is consistent. The countryside has been running on this logic for centuries. The land rests. The seasons slow down. The animals move at the pace that keeps them well. There's no hustle culture that convinces a field to grow faster than it grows.
So the next time you're clicking the same adjustment brush at half ten at night, not improving anything, just moving, stop. Ask the question. Listen to the answer. The fox in the field this morning didn't hurry. And it got exactly where it was going.
Listen to Episode Six: Finding Your Rhythm →
The full story, told properly. Including the parts that don't make me look good.
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Want to work together? I'm currently booking sessions for 2026. If you're looking for countryside photography that captures reality rather than performance, let's talk.