Are other noob's as obsessed as I am?

hankejp · Nov 10, 2008

Just wondering if this is normal or if I should be seeking help. It seems that I am obsessed with my new found hobby.

I am taking my camera everywhere, just in case. Every where I go I try to think what everything would look like in an exposure. I am constanly on these forums reading tips and looking at photos. Yesterday I sat out on my deck in 30 degree weather for 1 1/2 hours just waiting for som ebirds to come in to take a picture of them.

I'm sure there is more, but I can't remember them all. Are you or were you like this when you 1st started?

I've only been shooting since the end of August. Please tell me it's just not me?

ksmattfish · Nov 10, 2008

hankejp said:
I've only been shooting since the end of August. Please tell me it's just not me?

For the first 10 years I carried a camera everywhere except at work. Then I began working full time as a photographer, so now I carry a camera everywhere. My right, middle finger has a callus on the side the size of an acorn where Canon DSLR grips rub.

hankejp · Nov 10, 2008

ksmattfish said:
For the first 10 years I carried a camera everywhere except at work. Then I began working full time as a photographer, so now I carry a camera everywhere.

lol, I had to read that a couple of times.

stsinner · Nov 10, 2008

I love taking pictures, and since I live in a rural town, whenever I travel into the city, like today, I take my camera because city sights are so foreign to me after being out of the city for 20 years. Photography meshes nicely with my former hobby of people watching. I could sit in the foot court at the mall for hours with my wife just commenting on how people are dressed, etc..

tsaraleksi · Nov 10, 2008

I've gone back and forth-- on the one hand I love having a camera with me to capture anything that I might see but on the other hand it can sometimes leave you missing the fun to have a big camera hanging off of your shoulder, so I think it can, on occasion, be healthy to go and do things without a camera.

wchua24 · Nov 10, 2008

that is completely ok...doing this you can practice your shots to. there is no problem with that..i think even if your starring to eat your lunch you will try to take a picture of those too. lol

momofthing1and2 · Nov 10, 2008

hankejp said:
Just wondering if this is normal or if I should be seeking help. It seems that I am obsessed with my new found hobby.

I am taking my camera everywhere, just in case. Every where I go I try to think what everything would look like in an exposure. I am constanly on these forums reading tips and looking at photos. Yesterday I sat out on my deck in 30 degree weather for 1 1/2 hours just waiting for som ebirds to come in to take a picture of them.

I'm sure there is more, but I can't remember them all. Are you or were you like this when you 1st started?

I've only been shooting since the end of August. Please tell me it's just not me?

I am right there with ya!

BTilson · Nov 10, 2008

I'll chime in here too. I am one of those who takes their camera everywhere. I even take it to work on occasion. I terrorize my family with my flashes and constantly make them pose for me and get in front of my home made backdrop setup, etc etc... You are definitely not alone.

Battou · Nov 10, 2008

I carry mine everywhere, including work. Nothing wrong with that.

Here, take a flip threw this thread

http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143519

BTilson · Nov 10, 2008

Hawaii Five-O said:
What are ebirds?

Ha... I lol'd. Literally. For some reason.

Dao · Nov 10, 2008

Hawaii Five-O said:
What are ebirds?

Birds that you email to other person.

lol

Actually, I think the OP mean .. "some birds" instead of "som ebirds"

El2 · Nov 10, 2008

I wish I can bring my camera everywhere I go, but I can't and I don't want to leave my camera in my car all day. Don't want it stolen.

Battou · Nov 10, 2008

Dao said:
Birds that you email to other person. lol

Actually, I think the OP mean .. "some birds" instead of "som ebirds"

I do that all the time....I didn't even notice it till some one brought it up.

mrodgers · Nov 10, 2008

I got my camera and into the photography side of owning a camera about a month before Christmas last year. I was a complete noob other than snapshots of birthday parties and vacations. I had never had a camera where you could adjust anything.

I took pictures of everything. I gathered up all the kid's colorful little Littlest Petshop toys and Webkinz stuffed animals and took pictures of them. I too stood out in the freezing cold for hours, only it was well below freezing at night during the lunar eclipse. I was out for a bout 2.5 hours and if I remember, it was 18 F or so.

I looked out in the yard one day and noticed an old shovel leaning up against one of our apple trees. It looked interesting, and I went out into the cold to shoot it. As I learned more from here and the internet, I went back out and shot the same shovel in the same place again in another week. I learned more and shot the same shovel. I would go out and shoot this stupid shovel so much that my wife threatened that she was going to move it sometime while I was at work! LOL.

We have bird houses tied up on posts in our yard. Well, they are more like bird motels, they are big. We get these little birds, and the first one that moved in this spring, I walked around and around the tree shooting the little guy. Finally, I gave up on trying to get a good shot from the angle of under the tree, so I, at 36 years old, climbed up into the knarled old apple tree to get closer. He let me get pretty close surprisingly.

We have LifeFlight helicopter fly over our house all the time. When I hear it, I am like a little kid running excitedly for the door. Only, I am running with my camera. I have yet to capture it because it isn't always within a good range. But, just the other day, I heard it and saw off in the distance it was on course to fly directly overhead. By the time I grabbed the camera just inside the door, I realized it was not the LifeFlight chopper I have been trying to grab for so long, but an Apache AH-64! I was way excited about this!

Yes indeed, you are not alone. And since it's been nearly a year now and I don't concider myself a complete noob anymore, the obsession has nothing to do with noobness. Me frantically running into the kitchen so worked up about grabbing the camera that my wife though something had happened to me (I was working on the house at the time) was only less than a month ago. That was when the Apache chopper flew over.

BTilson · Nov 10, 2008

mrodgers said:
Me frantically running into the kitchen so worked up about grabbing the camera that my wife though something had happened to me (I was working on the house at the time) was only less than a month ago. That was when the Apache chopper flew over.

Ha, that's totally me, but also my 4 year old son. Any time ANYTHING airborne goes overhead, we go tearing out the door to try to see it. No matter if we are in our underwear or fully clothed! My wife snuck a picture of me and him both standing out in the yard in our boxers staring up at the sky trying to find the helicopter we were hearing. (We live way out in the woods.

)