In the course of a long life, everything changes.
Increasingly now that I'm old, I look into my photo archives, at the many folders I've created (mostly during the Covid lockdown when I had too much time on my hands and nearly not enough to do at times) and think, gee! was I there? did I do this/that? How... amazing.
I 've not had any children (that I know) of my own, but I took on two stepsons when I married their mother. They were then in their teens and had been neglected, the usual sad story of a family with too much money, obsessed with making more, the parents away working and the kids at home being looked after by maids and other staff. A driver took them everywhere. Sadly they had become alienated from their mom and her family and were resentful of what they felt was lacking in their lives. So I had an interesting ten years with them before they finished uni and moved into their respective careers. Both now live overseas.
All that to say I had plenty to do and in some ways my own photography languished for that period. At the end of it I also made a major career decision to move out of one specialty (media marketing) into another (interior design architecture), which also kept me busy for the five years it took me to build a practice and secure a good client base.
Also sadly, rather than use my cameras creatively I fell into the all-too-familiar trap of GAS. Bought and sold and bought again and sold again about two dozen cameras, notably Hasselblad, which I had always wanted to get into but when I finally did, realized that the 'blade and I did not get on together, for ergonomic reasons. How I wish I had the $$$ I spent on all that gear... sigh.
In the early 2000s I changed many of my (career, creative, financial and personal) directions. I sold out a lot of that gear and fired myself to return to the basics. Fortunately I had kept all my "early period" cameras (Nikkormats, Rollei TLRs, German folders, Contax Gs) and I forced myself to use them to redo and relearn much of what I had set aside for far too long.
From 2009 I went in a new direction when I decided that digital had advanced far enough that I was happy with what I could do with it. So I got into Nikon DSLRs. Another story entirely, for another time (and a thread I've already started, elsewhere in RFF).
All my life I've been attracted to static images, mostly of architectural subjects. My photography style is definitely 'documentarist' and I tend to illustrate what I see as it is, with few or even no embellishments.
A few areas I've neglected and am now working on are street candids and more people images. Now in my retirement period, I can spend longer periods of time away from Australia and exploring places in Southeast Asia I first saw in my younger, happy wanderer years (1970s-1980s), and revisit places I went to before my creative 'eye' had matured. I find a lot has changed there too, notably in places like Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Prambanan et al, which were once quiet, out of the way locations but are now tourist-infested and money-grabby and far too developed for my liking. But I still go, to see what has changed and to try to photograph them with a new 'eye'.
I will be returning to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat for the last time, early next year, with my partner - the first time I've traveled with someone since the 1970s. From there we will go to a new location chosen by consensus and mutual agreement. So far we've agreed on Japan but this could change, Asia is such a big place.
We did consider Europe but for me travel to there is much too long and too much has changed. It's also much too expensive for me now. But I do miss my times in France and Italy in the 1960s, when I could wander round back roads and country lanes and following rivers I - and being me, hanging out at all the wineries I drove past - in my Citroen 2CV ( I left this car stored with friends in La Rochelle for eight years) at will and just enjoy being in new places...
So yes, time passes, everything changes, and if we are to grow, our photography has to do the same. Plus ca change...
