I've decided to retire from photography...

Doug said:
Larry, I'm older than you but agree with your sentiments. Also never a pro photographer, and I'll observe that had you been a professional ice-cream taster, you might not choose to taste it after retirement! 🙂 Anyway, hang in there.
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Thanks Doug, and Charles. It’s going to be okay, one way or the other.🙂
 
You know, regardless of whether people decide to retire from photography: One of my fundamental feelings about how we interact with creative endeavors is that they are just as impermanent as anything else.

I'm attached, sort of, to my cameras and my photographs, and even to the hobbit and act of shooting, but I accept that those attachments are ultimately a little bit fickle. Someday I likely will decide that I'm no longer interested in photography. I hope that when the time comes I'm chill about it.

The flip side is that I sort of doubt that even that decision would be permanent.

All we can ever do is live in the moment and embrace what obsessions and hobbies keep us moving along.
 
I quite like the fact that the thread directly under this on the home page is one started subsequently by the OP asking about taking lots of film on holiday!
 
When I chose photography as my profession in my early 30s, a very conscious part of that decision was that I wanted a profession no one could make me retire from. I am 82 now, and still shooting and writing, and in fact, negotiating with my publisher to begin a new book. I deeply enjoy what I do and hope to continue working for as much more time as God gives me.

I have recently restarted my blog, alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. Check it out.
 
jonmanjiro said:
Am I mad to take a film camera to Southeast Asia? thread was posted by the ozmoose just yesterday. Guess he decided not to retire from photography after all 🙂
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Hello everyone from the OP, now in Indonesia...

I did wonder who and when someone would pick up my latest thread. Now here it is, risen to haunt me (ha!). So an update of sorts is due.

My decision a few months ago to "retire" from active photography seemed to come about as the result of a major (as in truly BIG) move we did earlier this year, from Tasmania to mainland Australia.

During the initial packing, we made a decision to offload as much as half our possessions if we could. We achieved maybe 40%. In many ways this was entirely liberating (thank you, Marie Kondo) but for me, revisiting all my negative, slide (and not forgetting digital) folders and storage boxes of printed images I had begun and dabbled with but never quite completed to my satisfaction, seems to have pushed me into an existential crisis of sorts.

I found among many other things, four original prints of images by Henri Cartier-Besson shot during his time in India in the 1940s. Also several exquisite prints by Max Dupain, a leading Australian documentary photographer of his time.

At age 70+ unfinished business (and finishing of said matters) becomes all-important. It has to me.

So many of my photo projects over the decades were related to my profession (now a retired architect) and had been continued for a long (too long) time, but mostly left uncompleted.

I realised that a new mindset and new plans had to be found and established so I could move through what I had and decide what was important (= to be kept and continued) and what wasn't (= to be disposed of in one way or another), and then go on.

Many (far too many) old projects were examined, assessed, revalued and dumped. Which caused me some grief, but also relief. Some had been important to me in my early years, when I was working as a journalist and writer but slowly aspiring to a new profession, architecture.

Two examples. Since 1970 I had accumulated several thousand images of the cats in my life. Now some may scoff, but cats have been an important part of my life, and I am blessed with a life partner who feels the same about these beautiful, inscrutable animals. This said, I had about ten thousand images (mostly B&W negatives) of long-deceased felines and no working plan to deal with these.

Over a few months, we went through the lot, sorted and restored the best, and I'm now producing an intended set of three illustrated books (to be privately printed in a very limited edition) of the best of my cat photography from the 1960s to date.

When these are produced, the bulk of the original images will be destroyed. Nobody in the family will want them, and I cannot bear the thought that they will some day end up in a 'hopper' (a disposal container) and end up as landfill or be burnt.

Similarly, I first went to Indonesia in 1970 and shot hundreds of images with a Rolleiflex and two Kodak Retinas. Sold many. The originals have reposed in archival sheets in a storage box since the '80s. These have some value, but to who? How will I dispose of them? This project has been set aside to be re-examined in mid-2020 when I return from my current sojourn in Southeast Asia. With a view to donating them to an archive.

Ditto my architectural images. I got interested in photographing colonial buildings in the mid-1970s when many (now destroyed) were still around but in very poor condition. This will mean dealing with about 70,000 images on film and in digital archives. Again, a lot of time will have to be given to these and eventually a decision made about what to do with them. A few educational institutions are interested - but will they buy or not? This has yet to be finalised. With luck and continued good health, 2021 will see me tackle this project.

During our move, I made the important (to me) decision to keep my darkroom and large stocks of film and printing paper. As you can imagine, moving this safely to the Australian mainland took some effort and great care by our removalists, who did the job without any damage at all to any of my valued gear, both cameras and enlargers.

I'm now on the road again for a few months - this time with only a film camera kit. The D800 with its arsenal of lenses remains safely stored at home in Australia. My Contax G1 with the 'standard kit' (28, 45, 90) and 50 rolls of film will see me through this journey. Carrying this kit is, at my age, a great relief, mentally and physically. My films are in plastic storage cans and left with friends in Singapore. I take only the rolls I need for a particular shoot, and I have decided to follow the good advice of a poster in this thread and have my processing done in Asia.

I have lived long enough to understand that life is basically a series of compromises which we all must do in order to progress and move on to some sort of final conclusion, whether satisfying or otherwise. But film has given me a new area of interest to play with and enjoy, along with the new (for me) realisation that I no longer have to approach it as seriously as I did for the past five decades.

I did mean to be brief, but that word doesn't seem to reside anywhere in my vocabulary or my nature...
 
ozmoose said:
Hello everyone from the OP, now in Indonesia...

I did wonder who and when someone would pick up my latest thread. Now here it is, risen to haunt me (ha!). So an update of sorts is due.
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Very interesting to read your update, ozmoose. Thanks for checking in to the thread again! Also great to hear you're back to shooting with a renewed mindset. Enjoy your travels in Asia and do drop into RFF now and again to keep us up to date!
 
Have the prints and negatives you will no keep recycled for silver content, there is little reason no to keep these out of a land fill, where the heavy metal will eventually kill useful organisms, or better still, donate them or the silver recovered to a local grass roots artists group, to help pay a utility bill or give a free membership or two, to promising new members.

I want to suggest, that you take time to see which camera/lens combinations are, in fact Touch Stone to notable events or periods in your life, and set particularly good memories aside, so you keep a few "Friends" as familiar companions, knowing you can have the bulk of your collection disposed of now and have a light "obligation" for someone elesse to render, after you are past onward from this life.

Personally, While I can see the feeling of freeing yourself from the burden of so much kit, I can no help that a Leica or two (or something else) no having a special connection to a special moment or event in your long life.

I feel you will regret breaking hard from whom you have been, at the expense loosing your best bearings in your new life direction.

IMO.
 
At 83, I sometimes wonder how long I'll be willing to carry on, how long photography will present challenges and interest for me. I don't range as far these days and so the phrase " Been there, done that," comes to mind. Yet, still the same old things seem to beg to be shown in new ways or with new aspects.

I have an added incentive. Even though I only shoot personal stuff these days, a certain percentage of images go to a stock agency. The sales from stock add a little to my retirement income.

My equipment is fairly minimal now: a Leica M with a few lenses and a Nikon D810 with an all-encompassing 24-120mm zoom.

I still ride a recumbent bicycle for health and pleasure and engage in photography for my mind's health. So far so good!
 
I just turned 70 and I am struggling with this very same thing. Far to often when I go some where I find myself just using the iPhone and leaving the kit behind. Even my M4/3 mirrorless kit looks "heavy" these days. I still have a fair amount of equipment going back to 1974.
 
I expect I will keep photographing as long as I have something to say photographically. I do seem to be transitioning somewhat to digital, but I still shoot film as well. Just not quite as much. Sometimes I can do all the photography I want with just my X100, or my M9, or my X10.
 
You should go out with a bang, rent an empty store front or a gallery, exhibit your life's work and celebrate with family & friends! If you sell prints, it might even be budget neutral.
 
Thanks for the update ozmoose, it seems me you have very clear ideas how to deal with photography and where are priorities.

Enjoy your trip in Asia with your film cameras!
 
I still have my G1 with 3 lenses, ozmoose! Thanks for the reminder that light cameras may become more important one day.

Enjoy your trip.
 
I turn to my seventh decade next year but to date I don’t ever think about retiring my photography interest.

There were a few short years in the early-mid 90s when I had left work and a bespoke darkroom, when I couldn’t process my films and enlarge prints at home. Photography-wise it was a fallow and very frustrating period.

My saviour was the first digitals making their appearance, and I bought a Nikon 8400; never gave up my film cameras though.

The way I feel now is that I can’t ever see a time, unless through physical infirmity, that I’ll stop taking photos. There’s just too much I see and want to record.
 
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