What were we thinking?

lostprophet said:
I'd suffering from depression for about 4 years on and off and I'd been on anti-depressants for a few weeks and was told to just get out and do something. so I did, I just went in town and brought the first camera I saw in a shop, didn't have a clue how to use it and decided it might be fun learning.

I've never had a lesson in my life I just learnt from looking at other peoples work, thats the best thing about this group, theres just so much talent from you people to keep me trying harder.

Photography is theh best thing in my life, OK its the ONLY thing in my life but hey i'm now happy:D

I just had to comment on this. I was told that I was depressed and despite not having medical insurance any longer, therefore not being able to continue seeing my therapist, I feel my depression has hit its all time high. Like you, photography is the one thing that keeps me going. The feeling I get when I am out there taking photos is better than any high I have ever experienced.

As for the question.....I feel that I was serious even when I had my first point and shoot. Like a few people here have said its not all about the equipment you have but what you do with it. I got serious with the cheap point and shoot I got for christmas. It took little skill, sure, but I was taking my time putting together shots and really thinking about what I was doing.

Not that I have use of a decent digital camera and my Canon T50 SLR I feel that I am slightly more serious than I had been but not much more. Now I get to change the lens, fiddle with the lens, etc.

Oh, why I have gotten serious.....its actually a pretty selfish reason. I liked the attention. My sister was always good with instruments (piano, violent, and a couple of others) but I never had that one thing I was good at. Sure I could read but who cares? When my mom gave me a 50 dollar Olympus point and shoot for christmas a few years ago I took some shots and everybody liked them. They told me that I had an eye for photography. It drove me. I was in it more for the attention than I was for the one. I think thats fine though. Everybody has to have that one thing they are proud of and are willing to accept the attention for:)

Although now I do it more for the love of photography. Ive found myself taking shots I want to take and not what I feel others will like.
 
I started off as a Scientist but there was little job satisfaction.
So I became an illustrator but it was way too much hard work.
Then I discovered Photography* and found it was both Science and Art... and a dead easy way of making lots of money.



*Well, almost. Although discovered largely by Niepce and Fox Talbot, Thomas Wedgewood did some early experiments and he was an ancestor of mine. I like to think it's in my blood.
 
It's in my blood. My old man was a keen photographer in his day but had to sell his gear to pay the bills before I was born. Fast forward 30 years and in 1987 I had to do exactly the same thing. That is my biggest regret. I live in the industrial North and the urban landscape has changed so much over the last 20 years it's not funny, and I haven't had a camera to capture the past or record the transition. Some of my most precious pictures were taken in 1982 as a 17 year old with my K1000 of the changes to my local area. Too late in life I realise that my dream job would have been a photojournalist covering wars, famines etc. I'm too old to start now, have too many family commitments, and can't afford the gear to do it properly. lesson for the young: grab each day and opportunity by the scruff of the neck and wring everything out of it you can and don't look back.

Cheers, Lol
 
Serious isn't about equipment... read some of my posts where I get hammered for saying its whats in your head not in your hand. If you look at the shootout shot that I put up here (most likely badly flawed to most of you), you will find a shot made with a PnSthat cost less that fifty bucks. It has no controls that I can find.

I shoot mostly cameras with lenses from the turn of the 20th century. So a digital for me was a tool not a show off thing. My nephew and I have a great shoot out on my blog, so it use it for that now and then. Want to fidget with stuff lets see, with a true retro camera first you read the light, then you focus on the ground glass on the film plane... then you set the lens, then you insert the film holder, then you check the light again because it has taken so long to get that far... then you pull the dark slide, make the shot, put the dark slide back and take the film holder out. You move the camera a few yards (it is too heavy to move all around) then you do it all again.

Now that's fidling with a camera and it sure does get a lot of attention. Mostly people with digital camera shaking their heads.

No camera no matter how inexpensive is something to not take seriously. I did it again I know got all preachy and stuff. Im sorry.
 
Since I was 7 or 8 I had been drawing, then painting, and seriously wanted a career in art. But I joined the service first, got married, had kids, and basically got sidetracked by life. Years passed and I dabbled in woodworking, did a few drawings now and then but nothing really gratifying. About 4 years ago I was crewing a yacht from the Florida Keys up the Gulf of Mexico and had a 35mm along for snapshots. When I got the 16 rolls of film developed (it was a long trip) a lot of my friends and family commented how good they were and wanted prints to frame. I guess I found a new outlet for creativity that had been dormant for way too long. I started looking for subjects, bought a few more cameras, took correspondence courses, joined photo clubs, and entered local and regional exhibitions. When I won a couple awards, sold several prints, and was published locally - well, I was hooked. It's still a part-time hobby but one I hope to transform into a career in some way - some day. This fall I'm going back to college - Media Arts. Oh yeah, I'm 51 years young... don't ever give up on dreams!
 
there are only two things i take seriously: my family and career. to me, photography is simply capturing something i think is interesting and sharing it with others...just a fun thing to do. i have other interests that appeal to me more.
 
mysteryscribe said:
Why did you get serious (if you are) about photography. More than just a point and shoot memory maker thingie.

The main reason?
christinewall.jpg


Having access to her all the time basically inspired me to take up photography in the first place.
 
JonMikal said:
there are only two things i take seriously: my family and career. to me, photography is simply capturing something i think is interesting and sharing it with others...just a fun thing to do. i have other interests that appeal to me more.

The funny part is, is you take the most awesome pics. You wouldn't think it wouldn't be one of the things you don't take seriously.

But I'm with you (although I'm kinda new and not all that great at taking pics) I like taking the pics that are for fun, not scripted or by the book. Although taking pics is one of my hobbies that is fun and a fun thing to do with the hubster there are other activities I enjoy more.
 
For me, it just happened. I was on a long cycling trip and took a point and shoot camera. Of the 48 pics I took, 6 looked good, the others were crap. It was kind of a drag, and next thing is I have a new camera, and then another new camera, and a third new camera, and find myself out every weekend shooting something. I tend to use it for an escape from everything else.
I have no plans to become a pro, cause Im far from it, but I just like to go out and have some fun, and see what I can get. I have a pretty wild imagination and always have to create things, so photography became an extreme hobby for me, along with Halloween as my other hobby. So the two kinda fit together too.
It might change one day, and I may pursue it as career...ya never know.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top