How obsessed with photography are you?

[stevet1]

It's given me a greater appreciation for life, I think.
The symmetry of a flower petal, the flight of a bird, the joy in a baby's face when he discovers something new, the lonely country road stretching off into the horizon and wondering where it leads...
Every day it's something new.

Steve Thomas

 

[Original katomi]

Update 14,o,19. Are withdrawal symptoms if I can’t get to do photography count as obsessed lol he he I am not mad just a photographer who haven’t taken a photo for a few hours

 

[SquarePeg]

Taking photos is one of my favorite ways to spend a day. In the fall I usually take one or two trips that are specifically focused on photography and I am out with my camera several times every week. Once winter cones I usually put my gear away and rarely take it out with me. In spring I’m back at it. In summer not so much. I guess it’s a seasonal obsession for me.

 

[407370]

I did not realise how much I missed my hobby until I had to give up photography for the last three years. I was working in Saudi Arabia and a westerner holding a big camera gets a lot of unwanted official attention.
Since I moved back to UK 10 days ago I have had to deal with all that bureaucracy and pack a daughter off to university but this week I have organised a week in Scotland dedicated to me wandering about various mountains and cities with a camera. I actually cannot wait.
Pics will be posted here ad nauseum. I gotta get it out of my system!!!

 

[Photo Lady]

I am not nearly as preoccupied with photography, and cameras, and lenses, and lighting gear as I was say 12 to 15 years ago. Around 2003 to 2007 I was extremely obsessed with photography, and I greatly expanded my equipment set during those years.

I waited for about 20 years or more for what I thought would be a digital still video camera, but in 1998 Nikon announced the D1,and in February 2001 I bought myself a used D1.Since that time I have bought 11 or 12 digital single lens reflex cameras and several compact digital cameras,as well as a huge assortment of lighting gear, most of it acquired off of eBay. However since 2017 my photography has slowed down quite a bit.

I no longer am obsessed with photography, and I no longer comb the web daily in search of the latest advances in photography. A couple of years ago I decided to get rid of stuff I was no longer using, and I sold off most all of my Canon lenses, but I did keep a couple of Canon digital bodies. I sold off my big 200 and 300 millimeter Nikon lenses,and I got rid of lenses that I no longer needed or used only very infrequently, and now have reduced my Nikon lens collection way,way down to about 20 lenses.

I have been interested in photography for about 45 years now, and if you buy one lens every year for 45 years it is pretty easy to develop a huge lens collection. If you buy two or three lenses in a year every other year, you'll still have a huge collection of lenses after 25 or 30 years.

i think you slowed down a bit because you know so much... you don't have to be obsessed anymore.. it is kick back and relax time.

 

[Photo Lady]

It's given me a greater appreciation for life, I think.
The symmetry of a flower petal, the flight of a bird, the joy in a baby's face when he discovers something new, the lonely country road stretching off into the horizon and wondering where it leads...
Every day it's something new.

Steve Thomas

So very true.. i observe so much more ...

 

[SquarePeg]

I did not realise how much I missed my hobby until I had to give up photography for the last three years. I was working in Saudi Arabia and a westerner holding a big camera gets a lot of unwanted official attention.
Since I moved back to UK 10 days ago I have had to deal with all that bureaucracy and pack a daughter off to university but this week I have organised a week in Scotland dedicated to me wandering about various mountains and cities with a camera. I actually cannot wait.
Pics will be posted here ad nauseum. I gotta get it out of my system!!!

Welcome back! Looking forward to it.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I've been a photographer so long it's second nature now. I sometimes forget I'm still holding the camera, it's like an extension of myself. How much or how often I take pictures depends on what else is going on, etc.

I reached a point a long time ago that I knew I'd do something with photography, just didn't know what. Not surprised I more recently started doing submissions to juried exhibits, but I hadn't expected to have done sports (hockey). You have to love it enough to stay with it.

 

[gk fotografie]

I think obsession sounds very dangerous, I prefer to call it passionate and I was certainly passionate as a teenager and many years after that. During that time in my teens I bought Dutch, German and English photo magazines on a monthly basis, experimented with films, filters, color printing (Cibachrome among other things) and I was so often in my darkroom developing and printing in black & white and color, that my mother sometimes closed this space in the summer to get me outside. I''m a certified photographer, I've studied for 4 years at the former MTS voor Fotografie en Fototechniek in The Netherlands, since 1981 I've had my own photo and design studio for 30 years. What I've never had, however, is that urge many amateur photographers seem to have with buying all kinds of lenses, newer/better cameras etc. etc. As a professional, I bought the (best) things I needed and what apparently is called GAS I never had.

I don't know, but the last 10 years (since 2008, when I bought a digital camera) my interest in photography has declined further and further, perhaps because I'm not actually that much interested in "digital photography" or because of my health, which is considerably gone backward in the past years. I've done a lot of different things in more than 50 years of photography (I think it's easier to mention what I did not do than vice versa) and certainly made more than 1.5 million pictures, so for me it's not strange that my true passion has disappeared a bit. It goes up and down, I still have quite some ideas, but implementation is something completely different, this summer I gave myself some photo assignments and that absolutely seems to help in my case. Where my need for photography is falling sharply, my enthusiasm for designing and creating art objects (something that I've done for years alongside my photography) is on the rise again.

 

[NGH]

it's just a hobby... it's not important to me at all... no, not at all... Okay so I have more cameras than teeth. Okay so I've looked at some sort of photography website/forum/app several times today and it's not quite lunchtime..
It's not a problem. I'm not obsessed. Nope.

Must get back to doing some work. ....hmm shall I use the Kodak or Ilford next time out?....

 

[Tropicalmemories]

I think my obsession is with the images. I want to capture moments in time, before they are lost "like tears in the rain".

My cameras are just tools to achieve this aim.

I even took a camera on one of my first dates with the lady who would become my wife - and whenever I look at this simple snap, I can remember how I felt when looking over the table 10 years ago. I can also remember trying to only look into her eyes, and failing.

And when we're old, I hope we'll get pleasure viewing the images of our travels together, my attempts at glamour photography, and our many, many selfies.

 

[DanOstergren]

I love it a lot, but I have to be careful not to get burnt out on it because I do it professionally. I find that having other hobbies helps me love photography even more by keeping it from taking over my life.

 

[pocketshaver]

the only hobbies I have are going to work, trying to figure out a way to stay home from work, and designing houses in my head.

Playing with a camera is a really good thing. Getting a random photo off is really godly. Thankfully I have a rabbit family in the yard that like to come out late afternoon on the weekend when im home

 

[NE-KID]

When I got sick a long time ago I decided to take my pain and passion to photography. I started with a Nikon D5100 until I sold it and took some time away and got back in to photography few months ago when I bought my first Nikon D810 got a great deal on it since it was brand new.

 

[Bear Dale]

How obsessed with photography are you?

In dollar value, I'll say what you Americans say in court "I'll take the 5th" !!!!!!!!!!!