Does Doing Art for Profit Kill the Passion?

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Recently, I’ve been in a creative slump. It’s been two and a half months since I uploaded an article on Medium and nearly five months since I shot a live show. I love writing and I love photography, so why haven’t I been doing either in the past few months? Over those months, I lost the drive to create for creation’s sake and was trying to create for the sake of income.

Before I moved to New Zealand in September, I was doing photoshoots here and there and making a little extra money off that. I had thought that I could do the same while traveling out here. I quickly found out that it was harder to come by people who are willing to pay for photography in New Zealand compared to the States. I tried my hand at advertising for different types of photography: concerts, engagements, family, everything, and anything. Time and time again, I found that people only wanted it if it was free.

I began writing on Medium earlier this year, and at first, I got pretty decent engagement. Nothing crazy or viral by any means, but enough to keep me happy. I made a little bit of money and I thought that maybe this would be a good way to bring in a little extra income on the side. I kept writing and publishing, but my numbers were going down rather than up. Like with photography, I became discouraged from writing because it seemed like no one really cared.