Achieving Your Photography Goals When Life Gets Busy

If you’re passionate about photography, you’ve probably experienced that frustrating feeling: your camera gathering dust while life races ahead. Between work, family, and endless to-do lists, it can feel impossible to carve out time for creative pursuits. But the truth is, it is possible to make space for your photography. You just need to be deliberate about it and it starts with a mindset shift and a few practical strategies.

Reframe What “Progress” Means

When time is tight, it’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind. Maybe you dreamed of building a portfolio, learning new techniques, or starting a photo project, but weeks go by, and nothing happens. Instead of aiming for perfection or big leaps, celebrate small wins. A single well-composed photo on your morning walk counts. Even a  few minutes editing a shot on your phone counts. Progress doesn’t have to be monumental; it just has to be yours.

Schedule Tiny Creative Appointments

You probably schedule meetings, appointments, and errands. Why not your photography? Treat it like anything else important in your life. Block off 10-15 minutes a few times a week. Maybe it’s during your lunch break, just before sunset, or while your kids are at practice. Even micro-sessions add up over time. The key is consistency, not length.

Keep Your Gear Accessible

One barrier to spontaneous photography is having to dig out your camera or lenses from storage. Keep your gear ready to go. Whether that means keeping your camera on a shelf by the door or simply getting comfortable using your phone’s camera creatively. The less friction between inspiration and action, the more likely you’ll capture those fleeting moments.

Combine Photography with Daily Life

You don’t need to go on grand adventures to take meaningful photos. Your daily routines can become opportunities for creativity. Document your commute, your neighborhood, your family’s routines, or quiet details in your home. Try giving yourself small challenges: capture a color theme, play with light and shadow, or focus on reflections. This way, photography weaves naturally into your busy life rather than feeling like a separate, time-consuming task.

Be Kind to Yourself

Finally, remember that life has seasons. There may be stretches when your camera stays in its bag more often than you’d like. That’s okay. Creativity ebbs and flows, and sometimes simply staying connected to your passion, through admiring others’ work, reading photography articles, or jotting down ideas, is enough. The important thing is to give yourself grace and keep the spark alive.

In the end, finding time for your photography goals isn’t about waiting for life to slow down — it’s about bringing photography along for the ride. Small moments can lead to big growth, and your busy life can provide endless inspiration. So pick up your camera, even for just a minute, and see where it takes you.

The Space Between

There’s a place I keep finding myself lately — not quite where I was, not yet where I’m going. A space between.

That space has been on my mind a lot these days. Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s that quiet stirring that comes when life starts shifting under the surface. You go through the motions for years, building a life, a family, a career, and one day you look up and realize something’s calling you back. Or maybe forward. Or both.

For me, that call has always been photography.

It all started with a little Kodak Ektralite 400 I found in my grandparents’ catch-all drawer. I was just a kid, but something about that camera fascinated me. I eventually got my own as a birthday gift, and from those first blurry shots looking up the dog’s nose, I was hooked. Nothing spectacular came out of it, but something had been sparked. A quiet fire which still burns.

Over the years, life took the lead. University, work, marriage, parenthood. My camera was always somewhere nearby, sometimes gathering dust, other times clutched tightly on trips, walks, moments I didn’t want to forget. Always chasing meaning.

Lately, that chase feels different.

Not long ago, I was sorting through old photos when one stopped me cold. It was taken on a sun-soaked afternoon at my grandparents’ cottage. The kind of slow, golden day that only exists in memory. There I was, around twelve, barefoot and beaming, standing on the edge of so many yet-to-be-written adventures. I stared at that photo for a long time.

What struck me wasn’t just the nostalgia, but the quiet realization that my own son is now at that very same point in his life. That same age. But unlike me, his childhood has been captured from every angle. Memories to last a lifetime for both of us.

And still, there’s a bittersweetness to it all. As much as I’ve tried to freeze time with my camera, I can feel him beginning to step out into his own story. One I won’t always have a front-row seat to. That photo of myself suddenly felt like a mirror, and a reminder: these moments are fleeting, even when you do everything you can to hold onto them.

These feelings stirred something deeper: Why am I not doing this more? Not just snapping photos, but really committing. Making photography not just a passion, but a bigger part of my life. Maybe even my next chapter.

It’s scary to admit that out loud. There’s vulnerability in acknowledging you want something different, something more. Especially when you’re no longer in your twenties, when responsibilities have settled in, and reinvention feels risky.

But here, in the space between, I’m beginning to see that maybe this is exactly the time to listen. Maybe these in-between moments — between careers, between identities, between old comfort and new purpose, are the most fertile ground of all.

So I’ve been leaning in. Picking up my camera with more intention. Revisiting old photos not just to reminisce, but to learn. Shooting more. Writing more. Dreaming, a little cautiously, about what a future in photography might look like, and what I could offer through it.

I don’t know exactly where this leads. But I do know how it feels. It feels like coming home. Like remembering who I’ve always been, even when I wasn’t paying attention.

And maybe that’s the gift of photography: it gives you a way to hold still long enough to see yourself clearly.

So here I am. Between then and now, between what was and what’s next. Camera in hand. Heart open. Listening and exploring the possibilities…