Stopped doing photography for a bit

seriousrikk

seriousrikk

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Richard
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I know, mortal sin as such - but earlier this year I seemed to completely loose most of my photographic motovation.

Bloody infuriating I'll tell you! I stopped coming here. I stopped tearing open my copied of practical & digital photography when they arrived (Still got 2 of each unread!) and I was getting rather worried my motivation would not return by my holiday (in a week an a half!).

Well it came back today :D :D :D

And of all things it was a toad that brought it back :cuckoo: - and I'm bloody happy!

Has anyone else 'lost the will' before?
 
Well I quite often lose the will to live!! :D :lol:

I think it happens to us all Richard. I often wonder what the hell I am taking photos for. I think........if I dont put these on the forum, why am I doing it?


it soon comes back though... as it has with you welcome back! :thumbs:
 
Richard,
I am pretty new here - about 25 years ago, I was big into photography, and even tried to earn a living at it, then was in a church in Sevilla, camera round my neck, when I realised a funeral was going on. Now, there were lots of tourists, all flashing away, all intruding on the moment, but I felt really bad at being there, even though I had not taken a picture. A bit of a fuss was made (bearing in mind that this was sort of before the English invasion of Spain, so tourist were not such an every day thing) and I ended up apologising to the family, and just gave up taking pictures. I only recently started taking anything more than just snaps of the kids, and am finding that there is so much to learn, or re-learn, plus so much to buy - software, digital this and that..
My excitement is returning, but I still feel a bit of a poser with a big camera and lens hanging like male jewelry from my neck, and until I can start getting some results I am proud of, am trying to be gentle and discreet - I live in a small village in rural Spain, where all people over the age of 50 were peasant farmers till recently, most still are, so money, cameras and foreigners are all fairly new and strange.. (OK, maybe it is just me that is strange..)

Hope you continue to enjoy your newly regained interest (me too, as I have just orderd a new body and lens..)
Steve
 
I stopped taking photos around 82 i was into it big then but certain things in my life changed and it didn't seam important any more in fact nothing seamed important back then, but this year i decided to go back to my hobby in a serious way its all changed but im starting to love it again maybe because there is god people here on TP there like family
Continue to enjoy it
 
Ally said:
If your not happy or you mind is not their your images suffer as mine have.
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Funny you should say that. I was saying the same thing to someone on Flickr the other day. I think my images are starting to reflect my mood. ie crap! :lol:

I know it comes back though, as Janice said.
 
I'm on a semi permanent break at the minute. I just can't find anything I even want to photograph. Went to an AUtocross race at the weekend which I used to love and I find myself taking the same very repetetive shots over and over.
 
about a year and a half i started a new job and moved away from preston where id quite happily been photographing bands for the last 2 or so years. where i moved to had nothing for me to do and my camera just sat there, in the lake district surrounded by such landscapes i did nothing. and yeh i just kind of lost motivation. but i sort of got it back recently, im still only out about once a month with my camera properly, be it to a rally or just going out and having a mess about. its a shame, but thats the way it goes. motivation comes and goes. you just need to challenge yourself to do something that interests you
 
With all hobbies, if you have been doing them for a time you go through a flat spot even if no other circumstances intrude. At least with photography nothing deteriorates. I am a plants-man and when I went through the flat spot with my cacti I lost a lot of plants and regretted it when my interest returned.

I suppose the only good thing is when you get your interest back you view things in a more sensible and less fanatical manner than you did before. You can at least pick up your equipment and start from where you left off in photography, though I wonder what problems those dropping film for a while will have if they return in a few years as I can foresee it getting more and more difficult to get the materials as firms either shut down or convert to digital only through declining demand. Probably film will be available for many years to come but choice of materials will shrink as the market does.

I read a Fuji annual report that said they had expected their film sales to decline at the rate of 10% per year but had been caught off guard as they had actually declined at 20% in the last year.

We all go through bad patches in life, the thing is not to force yourself in to taking pictures just for the sake of it and wait until either the interest returns or you decide it has gone forever. In the latter case get rid of your equipment as in the case of both film and digital it's secondhand value quickly declines as the unending stream of new models appears on the market.

One photo magazine claims, unlike film cameras which did not change so often, the average life of a digital camera model is now 18 months. That is not to say it only lasts 18 months but simply it is liable to be replaced by a newer version or model every 18 months so it's secondhand value goes down considerably.

Rather than keep pointlessly upgrading as each new model comes out because they really differ so little it was recommended you only update a digital camera about every 3rd new upgrade to see any significant technical advances, which means a minimum of usually of around five years before updating your camera.

DaveW
 
Been there. Stopped for shortly before Nikon brought out their F90x and only restarted last year.

Initially, family commitments and work took over. When things settled down, having sold my gear, I felt I wanted to get out so I started a new hobby, fly-fishing, which became all consuming. Photography bug was rekindled when I watched the ospreys taking fish from the Lake of Menteith.

I now need to scale down the fishing gear and increase the camera kit on my fishing trips.

Anyone know how to stabilise a tripod in a rowing boat?
 
"Anyone know how to stabilise a tripod in a rowing boat?"

Bore three holes in the bottom of the boat so the tripod legs reach the bottom of the lake!:lol:

DaveW
 
kendo said:
Anyone know how to stabilise a tripod in a rowing boat?
Click to expand...

Can you get a gimbled (sp?) head?

I'm still at the bumbling new enthusiast stage, but am well aware this motivation loss can strike at any time. If it does, at least I now know it will eventually correct itself. Glad to hear you are back in the groove.
 
I took a photography 'O' level at school (showing my age there!) and was mad-keen to work in the industry after. I was always prefered the darkroom side of photography to the actual taking and managed to get a job in a pro-lab doing wall-sized prints and exhibtion panels (in the days before inkjet printouts were the norm). Six years of spending 10+ hr days in a darkroom and elbow deep in chemistry meant the interest I had in photography as a hobby was well and truly kicked out of me.

Twelve years later I moved out to the countryside and this stirred up the interest again. Really really into it now, and I MUCH prefer the taking side to the processing side of it :thumbs:
 
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