Finding Photography Silly

martin7

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I am finding photography silly as I get older. I was really into it in college. Lugging around a DSLR to take a picture of nature, landmarks, or artistic urban areas that everyone has already taken millions of better pictures than me is somewhat discouraging. Although certainly some remote areas you might get a unique photo. I just don't find the effort worth it most of the time. I guess the only thing I enjoy now is to take pictures with friends and family on vacations to remember it years later, but I rarely look at old photos.
 
I am finding photography silly as I get older. I was really into it in college. Lugging around a DSLR to take a picture of nature, landmarks, or artistic urban areas that everyone has already taken millions of better pictures than me is somewhat discouraging. Although certainly some remote areas you might get a unique photo. I just don't find the effort worth it most of the time. I guess the only thing I enjoy now is to take pictures with friends and family on vacations to remember it years later, but I rarely look at old photos.
Why do you, or anybody for that matter, sign up on a website where most participants are passionate about their hobby or vocation that you find silly?
 
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Everyone burns out from time to time. Put the camera in the closet, go out and do something else for a while.
 
I am finding photography silly as I get older.
According to your profile you haven't started getting older yet.

There is no point in trying to get unique photos as someone has already done better. It is a bit like talking - you express your self regardless of whether someone else had said similar or better. While I have something to express I shall continue with photography.


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At Tunnel View in Yosemite, that has been photoed hundreds of millions of times, I brought a light on a stick with shoot through umbrella, posed a lady on the wall between the dozens of tripods where they were capturing the cliched shot, and got a shot that has rarely, if ever been taken there, a beautifully lit portrait that took 50 lbs off the lady. My favorite complement on my shots over the years came from her ex husband who saw the shot and said I made her look too good. Oh, and ended up dating her. Change the word guitar for camera in John Denver's song this old guitar. It has "taught me to sing a love song, how to laugh and how to cry, introduced me to some friends of mine and lightened up some days, helped me make it through some lonely nights. Through it, I have made life long friends, learned to see emotion and body language, is a never ending learning experience. I would suggest start learning the craft and you will see the meaning of the words I don't want to photo new things, I want to photo old things in a new way.
 
Any activity can be deemed silly if one has no meaningful purpose for doing it.
 
I am finding photography silly as I get older. I was really into it in college. Lugging around a DSLR to take a picture of nature, landmarks, or artistic urban areas that everyone has already taken millions of better pictures than me is somewhat discouraging. Although certainly some remote areas you might get a unique photo. I just don't find the effort worth it most of the time. I guess the only thing I enjoy now is to take pictures with friends and family on vacations to remember it years later, but I rarely look at old photos.
Maybe try a project? Something as simple as going to a flower shop and buying single flowers. Most florists will let you enter their cooler so you can select specic ones. Then make a setup and think of ways to capture them.

I am always working on a project to improve skills and step out creatively. Lately, I have been working on focusing skills, zone and manual. I incorporate the project idea, let's say "hands by manual focus" and when I go out, that's all I work on. You would be surprised how interesting and beneficial it can be.

There is always the weekly or monthly challenge thread on here as well.
 
I am finding photography silly as I get older [...] I just don't find the effort worth it most of the time[...] I guess the only thing I enjoy now is to take pictures with friends and family on vacations to remember it years later, but I rarely look at old photos.

I can appreciate your sharing your shifting preferences - I have gone through my own evolution and I think it's normal to change. The most important question we photographers need to ask ourselves is "why do we photograph" - and that reason doesn't need to be static. For me, the joy of photography is not so much the final product, but the process of getting there - the excitement of doing creative problem solving, or trying to find the decisive moment. Everyone has his or her own reasons for picking up a camera or not doing so. Be true to yourself and do what brings you fullfilment.
 
The OP is describing a high percentage of photographers when he describes them as taking snapshots of life events and then hardly ever going back to look at them. If we look at folks snapping, snapping, snapping away with their cellphones the percentage is much much higher. Many look at their snapshots in the first few days and then don't.......
 
Put the camera away and get a sketchbook and some pencils. Try that for a while.
 
When we lived in Melbourne Australia where I was born, my father taught me photography and I loved it. Then we moved to the UK I totally gave up on it but we kept all the old Kodak Kodachrome slides from when we both took photos. Years later I picked it back up and have loved it ever since, at the moment I have some of the old slides here as my mum has asked if I can get them to digital. So in time I will be taking a photo of each slide then get them on a USB stick so mum can look through them.
 

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