Stopped taking photos

[nongfuspring]

It is curious that you're not doing photography yet feel as if you ought to. You have no moral obligation to do photography. Maybe you'll come back to taking photographs, maybe you'll find something more rewarding.

That said, often it is good to make rules for yourself. To paraphrase Kant, freedom isn't the absence of laws but the ability for you to make your own. I think it's important, especially when we have a busy life of meeting other people's demands, to enforce our own discipline on our own terms. Maybe consider ways of turning the hobby into a regimen; a certain number of photographs per day or similar - the routine becomes its own reward.

 

[photomoof]

It is curious that you're not doing photography yet feel as if you ought to. You have no moral obligation to do photography. Maybe you'll come back to taking photographs, maybe you'll find something more rewarding.

The feeling that one ought to be doing something is not all that unusual. Reality however sets in, and we do what is actually successful in our lives. I should ride my bike more, the exercise is good, but I have gotten out of the habit, it takes discipline to do the things which relax us or improve us mentally.

Some years I have taken a few thousand photos, many years only a few vacation photos. I only take photos only for a reason (I am so NOT Winogrand), so it comes and goes, photography for me is not a hobby, if I don't have a dealer or a plan, it is hard to make work. But it never hurts to take a quiet walk with a camera.

When I have no plan, going out and looking at work does help, it awakens plans. I looked at Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola at MoMA this weekend, it was stimulating! Creativity is not a something you can just turn on and off like a faucet. Just taking photos to pile up a lot of them, or painting to relax often is difficult to sustain. If you never show them to anyone else, or share them with others who enjoy them, you will in the end likely lose interest, unless you are a robot.

Wait until you NEED some photos. Your next sailing adventure, your next trip. Don't worry so much. Take photos which matter. In the last weeks I have simply been sharing photos from a trip with friends on Facebook. Those "likes" and comments mean something. When a friend thanks you, even casual photography is more fun.

Recent vacation photo, meaningless but fun... like life?