I haven't taken any photos since October...

[Doug35mmGraves]

Fact is, the mall is private property--their house, their rules.
My iPhone is just another camera for me. No hesitation processing shots I like.
I've never been troubled shooting with my little phone-size Ricoh GR II. With no VF, it's held and shot like a phone and draws zero attention.

Even that's not true; during open hours, it's a public commercial business space & they have no legal right to ban taking photos there but they can ask anyone they want to leave for whatever reason they choose but if enough people organized & complained to proper government authorities they'd probably be able to change that photo policy of theirs.

 

[cgw]

Even that's not true; during open hours, it's a public commercial business space & they have no legal right to ban taking photos there but they can ask anyone they want to leave for whatever reason they choose but if enough people organized & complained to proper government authorities they'd probably be able to change that photo policy of theirs.

And you said your law degree was from where? Just asking...

 

[mvetrano2]

I've been in a very similar funk since the summer, and have not even looked at my cameras, or had a desire to use them since then. Hopefully this spring will set the feelings back into motion.

 

[nerwin]

I feel like in certain locations where winter seems to drag on and on people lose motivation for photography. During winter I try my best to get outdoors but this times its a lot more challenging with the extreme cold temps, snow that is waist high makes it difficult to really do anything or want to do anything outdoors.

I feel pretty burned out from photography and I feel like I never gained any traction. It's really discouraging when you see folks pick up the camera and a year later they are already doing exhibitions and in art galleries. Whereas I been rejected from them.

I'm simply not an artist. Just a guy with a camera, or well had a camera.

Social media played a huge role for me, it gave me motivation to go shoot and now that's pretty much all gone, I have little desire to even take photos anymore. Sometimes I get the itch and who knows maybe this long break I'm taking will be a good thing in long run.

 

[AlanKlein]

Unfortunately. I have a few old film cameras that aren't really worth the effort to sell. I'm not sure if or when I'll get back to it. Sometimes I miss it, but I feel like I've always done photography for attention on social media rather than my own personal enjoyment so I've always felt like I was an imposter to the art.

I started to notice that I was taking less and less photos each year. So I realized I was slowly losing interest, after a while photography was starting to feel repetitive and I was shooting the same thing over and over. I was getting frustrated editing photos and not liking them and not enjoying the process anymore. That's when I decided to just step back for a while, this was the longest. I haven't done any photography since July 2024. It doesn't help that I been dealing with a lot of personal issues too, I'm struggling with life currently. It's just getting hard staying interested in hobbies when you feel alone and like you don't matter to anyone. It's not easy you know?

I appreciate the compliment though

God doesn't make junk. We all have value. Get help. We all go through stuff that is hard.

 

[Dikkie]

I feel like in certain locations where winter seems to drag on and on people lose motivation for photography. During winter I try my best to get outdoors but this times its a lot more challenging with the extreme cold temps, snow that is waist high makes it difficult to really do anything or want to do anything outdoors.

I feel pretty burned out from photography and I feel like I never gained any traction.

Perhaps you need to go elsewhere, travel around.
I get more stimuli when I get somewhere else on citytrip or vacation.
Most of my photo opportunities come unplanned, by accident.

Btw, it's summer now! Get out for cycling or other activities!
How are you doing lately now?

It's really discouraging when you see folks pick up the camera and a year later they are already doing exhibitions and in art galleries.
Whereas I been rejected from them.

I'm simply not an artist. Just a guy with a camera, or well had a camera.

I never got my work in a gallery before. Never planning to.
Most of the work I see on exhibitions are superficial, but the mainstream visitors apparently seem to get satisfied by it.

It's like a skilled musician that makes complicated music for a specific subculture, high threshold-audio that mainstream people normally don't tend to appreciate because they don't comprehend or is on another level.
If that kind of music is suddenly played on a low-quality pop radio channel, the musician wouldn't feel it like a compliment. He could even get offended by it.

Social media played a huge role for me, it gave me motivation to go shoot and now that's pretty much all gone, I have little desire to even take photos anymore. Sometimes I get the itch and who knows maybe this long break I'm taking will be a good thing in long run.

Social Media can do a lot of harm. It's nice to use the technology for some benefits, but it has lots of disadvantages.
Yesterday I read somewhere: "Social media is curated and creates a new reality. It's not the reality that's good for you."
I can see some similarities with porn. Most of it creates another reality too.
Both work on your brain and produce dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, ...
Both can work compulsive and addictive. Which really isn't good, it's engineered to consume your time. Time that is better spend on learning new crafts or hobbies.

What bothers me on Instagram is that every 2 posts I see an advertisement or promoted post.
I see too much influencers posting zillions of times video content about their superficial lives, videos about how they prepare their next video, unboxing the stuff they buy, ... If you go offline for 6 months and come back, you see them post exactly the same things.
I recently started calling this "junk".
I see similarities with junk food.
And hyperprocessed foods aswel, created to satisfy quickly but without a sufficient amount of nutritional values.
It's fast digesting and you'll get hungry soon after.

Much of social media content is junk, low quality, fast consumed information, carousels of max 30 second videos. The brains will get rewired to a short focus span when using social media for a while. Tiktokification.

I happened to notice that I had around 6K followers, and 80% of them were not active anymore... since 2019 or so. I started to clean up, unfollow people, too time consuming, I ended up deleting my account, forever.
(I made a spare account before I did that, following only a small amount of people I did care about from the last years, just to stay connected with them, but I deleted the app on my phone, perhaps I reinstall a couple of times a year to see important messages from them, or to upload something exceptional.)

There's much to say about all this above, I could go on and on... but currently reading the book "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport. It has very interesting insights.
Next will be the book "Dopamine Nation" by Anna Lembke.
Social Media really works too compulsive and addictive (for me) and time consuming.
I'll try to spend more time in learning craft and creating music,... but then when finished, I need to spread it to the outside world, via Social Media again? (as I'm not a live gig player, but merely studio guy)

 

[21limited]

I read somewhere that you need to shoot for 10 years where you live….then start travelling. It saves wasting money while you are learning and lets you work out your workflow. I’ve been where I'm 15 years, and I force myself to go out. Most of what I shoot, I’ve already photographed at least once. For every image I’ve posted, I could go back and find another of the same subject from years ago. But bottom line what has always worked for me is “going someplace? Even if you don’t feel like it, take your camera.” It’s not often I come home with nothing.

 

[Dikkie]

Most of what I shoot, I’ve already photographed at least once. For every image I’ve posted, I could go back and find another of the same subject from years ago.

Yeah I can relate with that.
Living 11 years at my current place, before it was around 8 years elsewhere.
I almost bumped on my limits in my region... there are still some things I could shoot, but not that urgent so I postpone it... and I'm not going to shoot it better than other photographers have done before me.

If you do landscapes you can do them 4 times (for each season... )
But that doesn't work for most other styles.

 

[21limited]

It reminds me of years ago at a craft show. A couple young bucks began asking me where each image was taken. I had earlier heard them discussing that since I shot “lowly Pentax” and they were shooting Canons they could make a better image than I could produce, (even though the Pentax’s were using Sony sensors and had better DR than any Canon camera of the day.)

I came up with the response.. “If you like this picture, buy this picture.. You can go back there 100 times, and not get this image.” Especially true of sunsets and sunrises. They are never the same way twice.

2018
2018-01-26_Whitney-Sunset by Norm Head, on Flickr

2011
2016-11-01-winter-2 by Norm Head, on Flickr

2022
2022-01-31-Whitney-Beach-in-winter by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024
2024-02-02-Whitney-Beach by Norm Head, on Flickr

All taken at Whitney Beach, 1.5 KM from my house. Easy walking distance.

 

[nerwin]

It reminds me of years ago at a craft show. A couple young bucks began asking me where each image was taken. I had earlier heard them discussing that since I shot “lowly Pentax” and they were shooting Canons they could make a better image than I could produce, (even though the Pentax’s were using Sony sensors and had better DR than any Canon camera of the day.)

I came up with the response.. “If you like this picture, buy this picture.. You can go back there 100 times, and not get this image.” Especially true of sunsets and sunrises. They are never the same way twice.

2018
2018-01-26_Whitney-Sunset by Norm Head, on Flickr

2011
2016-11-01-winter-2 by Norm Head, on Flickr

2022
2022-01-31-Whitney-Beach-in-winter by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024
2024-02-02-Whitney-Beach by Norm Head, on Flickr

All taken at Whitney Beach, 1.5 KM from my house. Easy walking distance.

I've had similar responses. "I could take that same image on my phone" go for it then.

 

[21limited]

For some, they will always believe that buying a camera, makes them a photogrpher.

5 years ago, I would have laughed at the phone thing.

Now, if I can convince my iPhone to shoot 48mm raw, I sometimes choose it over my DSLR.
2025-06-10-Duchesnay Falls-hike-2 by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024-10-21-AP-Opeongo-Access by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024-08-22-AP-Opeongo-Annie's-Bay-fishing-1 by Norm Head, on Flickr

It doesn’t matter to me which camera is used, if I get the image I want. The conceit there is the thinking, that if they own whatever piece of equipment, they can take the same picture that I can. I’ve done many trips for photographers, where they had “better equipment” than I did, but didn’t get the same quality of images. So many wannabees have no understanding of what it takes to get good images. It’s not about what camera you use, any more than buying a hammer means you know how to build a house.

 

[nerwin]

For some, they will always believe that buying a camera, makes them a photogrpher.

5 years ago, I would have laughed at the phone thing.

Now, if I can convince my iPhone to shoot 48mm raw, I sometimes choose it over my DSLR.
2025-06-10-Duchesnay Falls-hike-2 by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024-10-21-AP-Opeongo-Access by Norm Head, on Flickr

2024-08-22-AP-Opeongo-Annie's-Bay-fishing-1 by Norm Head, on Flickr

It doesn’t matter to me which camera is used, if I get the image I want. The conceit there is the thinking, that if they own whatever piece of equipment, they can take the same picture that I can. I’ve done many trips for photographers, where they had “better equipment” than I did, but didn’t get the same quality of images. So many wannabees have no understanding of what it takes to get good images. It’s not about what camera you use, any more than buying a hammer means you know how tp build a house.

Its a good point. I don't shoot with a phone much because its a personal decision. I feel more connected to my work when using a dedicated camera, especially film. I use my phone for snap shots of things unless its truly the only camera I have with me at the time and I see a good photo.

 

[SharonHearn]

Even that's not true; during open hours, it's a public commercial business space & they have no legal right to ban taking photos there but they can ask anyone they want to leave for whatever reason they choose but if enough people organized & complained to proper government authorities they'd probably be able to change that photo policy of theirs.

That's very interesting and I would love to be able to find out if that is the case here in UK too as my local mall has signs up stating no photographs but also they have banned anyone from photographing the building that they also own across the road from outside on the street, if you are caught taking a pic then security will step in.

 

[nerwin]

That's very interesting and I would love to be able to find out if that is the case here in UK too as my local mall has signs up stating no photographs but also they have banned anyone from photographing the building that they also own across the road from outside on the street, if you are caught taking a pic then security will step in.

Atleast here in the states, if you're on public property, it's fair game. Even if its a government facility, if you can see it from a public sidewalk for an example you can photograph it because in public, there is zero expectation of privacy. I never been asked by police or government workers to stop. It's always security guards on a power trip.

 

[smoke665]

That's very interesting and I would love to be able to find out if that is the case here in UK too as my local mall has signs up stating no photographs but also they have banned anyone from photographing the building that they also own across the road from outside on the street, if you are caught taking a pic then security will step in.

Here in the US "The reasonable expectation of privacy" controls whether you can photograph or not. For example if you were sunbathing in the nude by your pool, with an enclosed privacy fence you would have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" from anyone on the street. If you were doing so in your front yard with no fence then you wouldn't. Even in an enclosed area, you would not have an expectation of privacy from any view from the air.

While malls are considered private property, they can also be public spaces, and as private property the owners can enforce reasonable rules that on there property, including the restriction of photography if they claim its a disruption to commerce. However it generally requires that notices be placed in a conspicuous location to be enforceable. As to sidewalk, roadways, if they are public domain they have no authority to enforce privacy rights.

I have no knowledge on the UK, I've read that their rules are similar, but I've also read there are some variances.