What drives your photography?

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rayonline

1734 posts

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#239530 22-Jul-2018 14:41

Is photography something that you do while enjoying other interests? Ie some might enjoy being with friends and family, or they might be a foodie or into wine or beer. They might enjoy sports or wildlife or enjoy going overseas or maybe to quite different countries like Steve McCurry style. Or they might be into macro of flowers and insects or events and concerts, car shows etc etc ..

Is it something photography by itself? You're content in walking around your local neighborhood and township with your camera. Is photography a enough hobby by itself that you disregard other activities? For a period of time doing very little other activity - no travel, no concerts, no food and drinks outside etc. I heard of some that say they are content without other activities and photog for them is like painting and how they document their life and home town ..... if you get my drift ....

I have thought about this as when I get into photography I get so involved with it that I forget to enjoy the moment. Seriously. I put away going out for meals cos I can save money for photog like a roll of medium format film. Or I put aside a year by staying home so I can get something else. Instead of that 2 or 3 week away hey this item can last 8yrs. Or what I have gone away, it was so into photography that most days I was shooting at dinner time, cos it's the golden hour (!!), the group splits up and occasionally when they were with me I finish up at 9PM the local fav restaurants have closed or have a different menu because the chefs have gone home. Often I finish up I just grab something convenient to bite go to sleep.

Senecio

2710 posts

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#2060573 22-Jul-2018 18:59

Photography for me is always something that accompanies other activities. Whether that's travelling, running, cycling, kayaking or playing golf etc.... It has never taken away from or detracted from mo enjoyment of these activities.

I guess I'm not a real photographer then.

frednz

1467 posts

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#2060656 22-Jul-2018 20:21

Senecio: Photography for me is always something that accompanies other activities. Whether that's travelling, running, cycling, kayaking or playing golf etc.... It has never taken away from or detracted from mo enjoyment of these activities. I guess I'm not a real photographer then.

I guess the perception is that "real photographers" carry around a huge pack laden with heavy gear and who spend all day just to get one great photograph of a single subject, such as a bird, a sunset, or a mountain! I have spoken to one or two of these photographers and their principal focus for the day was to get one or two great images worthy of publishing in a top magazine or web site.

Nevertheless, I think you can still be a "real photographer" even if you aren't actively seeking out photographic opportunities, but just use a reasonably good camera and lens every now and then to take a few good-quality images! If you really enjoy your photography and also understand the basic technical side of things, you are pretty much a "real photographer"!

rayonline

1734 posts

Uber Geek

#2060946 23-Jul-2018 12:05

That is something I need to change too. There are those hobbyists who goes to Myanmar to shoot street photography or other trips focussed just on photography. Some of them even join a photo tour. I have also been guilty of thinking speedlights are too harsh, I need to carry the largest light modifier (that I can manage) for family snapshots lol ... yeah sounds crazy. We see it in tourist towns too. Chinese tourists in the South Island and other tourists overseas. Backpack of photo gear, tripods, filters.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

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#2061008 23-Jul-2018 14:05

Fish. Travel.

Mike

frednz

1467 posts

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Inactive user

#2061127 23-Jul-2018 17:04

rayonline:

That is something I need to change too. There are those hobbyists who goes to Myanmar to shoot street photography or other trips focussed just on photography. Some of them even join a photo tour. I have also been guilty of thinking speedlights are too harsh, I need to carry the largest light modifier (that I can manage) for family snapshots lol ... yeah sounds crazy. We see it in tourist towns too. Chinese tourists in the South Island and other tourists overseas. Backpack of photo gear, tripods, filters.

I think a lot depends on what you intend to do with the images you take. For example, do you need a camera with very high megapixels (such as 42mp) if you never intend to produce very large canvases of some of your images? Some people now consider that a good mobile phone can produce images with a reasonable quality that are great for publishing on social media etc.

However, one advantage I see in having a camera with a high number of megapixels is that you can substantially crop, say, a wide-angle image, and still get a reasonable-sized image from the cropped image. This means that you can use a reasonably light wide angle lens for most of your photography and crop images instead of having to buy heavy and expensive telephoto lenses. Sure, a cropped image of a distant object isn't as good as one taken with a long telephoto lens, but at least it's a reasonable compromise when you don't want to carry heavy gear around!

rayonline

1734 posts

Uber Geek

#2061168 23-Jul-2018 19:03

frednz:

rayonline:

That is something I need to change too. There are those hobbyists who goes to Myanmar to shoot street photography or other trips focussed just on photography. Some of them even join a photo tour. I have also been guilty of thinking speedlights are too harsh, I need to carry the largest light modifier (that I can manage) for family snapshots lol ... yeah sounds crazy. We see it in tourist towns too. Chinese tourists in the South Island and other tourists overseas. Backpack of photo gear, tripods, filters.

I think a lot depends on what you intend to do with the images you take.

I guess for myself and many they don't print that large, given the fact that 24MP is about standard now which can push at A2 and beyond. About the only place I often appreciate that is when I pixel peep sadly. A lot of the times I didn't need a tripod. I guess the occasional peak lookout I was after oh sure but I didn't really need to shoot a night tripod shot off every landmark I come across. We photographers know it but we seldom compromise. We can crop but the nice lens doesn't liked to be left at home. In theory I could shoot everything with a ultra wide zoom and just crop to a 50mm. My challenge is now to relax and don't be such a perfectionist.

TLD

902 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2065333 30-Jul-2018 23:32

I no longer take a DSLR when flying, but I still take pleasure in getting a really good shot. That happens very rarely though. I get much more pleasure in making pictures without the camera nowadays. We have a weekly challenge on the Adobe forums (where I am a mod). A source picture goes up, and we can use anything we like to make something that includes part of that image. This week we got the train and tracks. The bridge, stars, sun, planet, relighting of the train is all manual illustration using Photoshop. I fin't I get much pleasure from this sort of project now, and begrudge having to carry a large camera.

Anyone can join in, but you would need an Adobe ID to post to the forum, so please come and join the fun if you are into this sort of thing.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2518044

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)