how much is photography...

Randy, what do you teach?
zauhar said:
Fascinating and sometimes complicated responses to a simple question.

Although most of my hours are devoted to what helps pay the bills (i.e. teaching college), photography has come to dominate my psyche to an uncomfortable degree.

Randy
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I got into it about seven years ago because I was lacking a real interest in my life .... I could probably walk away from it fairly easily if I stumbled over something that interested me more and was equally consuming.
 
robklurfield said:
hats off to you for both the courage to move your life in that direction and the courage to share your story here. a lot of us don't embrace change so well. your story inspires.
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Thanks, it was a long road but I made it. Every time I stumble upon an old 35mm that needs work I take the time to fix it because at one time I needed a lot of work and was overlooked often because of that. I see a piece of my childhood every time I bring a camera back from the brink of destruction, much like I did with an old Soviet FED-2 recently.

If I could have gone back in time to any one point in my life, I would have gone back to when I was 12 and handed myself an AE-1 Program and 50mm 1.8 SSC (what my father shot on when he was my age) and told myself to play hooky for a day and learn how to use this thing, you will thank me 15 years from now.

And to invest all of my lunch money in Apple stock. :D
 
Its a huge part for me too. I strayed from it for a while, after studying it actually, as it became apparent to me I wasn't going to make a career out of it, and the uni's insistence that digital was the way forward put me off. I returned with gusto about a year ago, and ever since have become more and more obsessed. My passion for photography now is much more now than it was then. Its not uncommon for me to dream about cameras and films, and I spend time on the net most days looking at images and ideas.
 
I have been taking pictures since I was 8 or so (about 20 years now). Sometimes I do it with more enthusiasm and it becomes a huge priority. Sometimes it is just a small little hobby. I do a lot of other art and artistic things as well (painting, print making, graphic design, music...). I am one those people who is happy as long as I am doing something creative. My art has cost me a lot relationship wise because some people don't understand that when the muse calls, I answer. It took me a bit, but now I have friends who understand that and it makes art all the more delightful.
 
I don't know quite how to say this but photography is a huge part of my life. Photography, my dogs, a great cup of coffee and my books are my passions. These things are all quality of life issues.

I read about photography every day. I collect photography books. I subscribe to photography magazines. Often I will spend my last spare dollar on photography related needs such as film or chemistry. I have on occasion made serious financial sacrifices to further my photographic pursuits and projests. I look forward to developing my film and finding the occasional visual jewels hidden among the negative strips.

It is wet and cold outside right now and I am suffering from the photographer's equivalent of cabin fever. Right now I feel clogged up in terms of creativity and photography. I get that feeling every year about this time.

I long for warm weather when people will be out and about, giving me a target rich environment for street photography. I look forward to photographing the blooming redbud and dogwood trees in the spring. And the tulip blossoms - holy Moses, the tulip blossoms!! The beauty of the fire engine red tulip blossoms in spring is a visual feast for the eye and the lens.

I cannot imagine life without photography. It would be an exercise in exsisting rather than living. It would be a miserable and intolerable exsistence of futile days mired iin barren drudgery.
 
everything gone...

everything gone...

Hi, well, for me camera is like machine for catching the time, everything
gone, photography is one of the thinks more solid then human. For for this reason, photography is my life.
And here is my story www.aleksochon.com
Alex
 
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