Why I Like Photography So Much
A hobby that would occupy my time until I became no longer viable
My first camera was an Instamatic camera my father gave me. I still have it. It is one of those cameras where you open up the back and drop a sort of plastic cartridge into the opening, close it and away you go. Looking for that Kodak moment.
The fun usually went on for twelve exposures. Most of my early photographs were close-ups of my fingers in the lens or my feet as I was trying to figure out how to activate the shutter, or a generous number of my little brother with his eyes closed with his runny nose featured prominently.
It was fun. Run and gun for twelve shots. Hand over the expended cartridge to my mother to take to the drug store to be developed. And then start saving up to buy another film cartridge.
Well, I’m retired now and in keeping with the popular advice given to people of the retired persuasion, I began casting about for a hobby that would occupy my time until I became no longer viable.
What about photography my wife suggested? Picture that.
How much trouble could I really get into taking pictures of stuff? I think I still had that Kodak Instamatic somewhere buried in a trunk somewhere. So I wouldn’t be dipping into the inheritance too much to buy gear. Photography might work.
They don’t make Instamatics anymore and they don’t make the film cartridges that go into them either. Not even online.
A lot has changed in the camera world. There are these cameras called digital cameras now that cut out all the fun of buying film cartridges, the joy of trying to load your old camera without exposing the film. Paying for film development is gone too. Who’d of known?
I didn’t want to jeopardize my chances of having a complete and fulfilling retirement, so I went all in and bought a new digital camera. We won’t discuss the price of this new camera except to say that I may have to make a few changes to my will and beneficiaries.
But, you know. I’m kind of enjoying this photography thing. Hobbies for me have always been a hit-or-miss thing, mostly miss with some piece of equipment I have purchased to one side of the bedroom dusty and used as a clothes hanger. Or taking up some corner space in the basement. “Hey Dad, I didn’t know you had a guitar.”
This photography thing is fun though, taking pictures of stuff and all. Why is that?
you seem to stop time for a moment
Have you ever noticed how things speed up as you get older? I mean really. As I get slower, Time is flying.
When you are younger, you can’t wait for the weekend to get here. Those work days just drag. Payday will never come. “Christmas will never get here.” “I will be old by the time I get my driver’s license.”
But when you get to retirement age there is no stopping that clock. The passage of time now feels like a school kid flying out of the door heading for the school bus in the morning, coat flapping, lunch half-made, hell-bent to get the day started and done.
Wait a minute! I thought things were supposed to slow down a bit. But when your life is circling the drain so to speak, it’s amazing how fast time seems to be flowing.
Photography seems to help a little. If you think things through, get the shot all lined up, in focus, composed (cameras nowadays do most of it for you), and take the photograph, you seem to stop time for a moment.
You look at a picture (and it doesn’t even have to look that good) and what you are seeing is what is now. Right now. Stopped for you to see. Time has paused. “Look how beautiful she is.” “Man, I’m skinny.” “ He kind of looks like your Uncle Harry.”
Time stops. When you take a photograph, you stop time. Without that photograph you have just taken, time passes by unnoticed, unappreciated. Too often, forgotten.
So for me, taking photographs slows that quickening march down a little. The taking forces me to pay attention to the moment. The viewing causes me to reckon with the moment.
There was a famous photograph I remember once that showed a little boy who had been blind for all of his short life and through some new medical miracle he suddenly could see. The photograph was of the boy’s face, that moment when he first experienced sight. The fancy term used now is “iconic,” an “iconic photograph.” It certainly is that. But for me, the viewer, and for the person who took the photograph, and I suppose for the little boy, time stopped.
bags full of camera gear doesn’t make the photographer
There is a practical part to the benefits of taking up photography as well. Like most hobbies, there is no end to the accessories that are absolutely necessary to properly further the pursuit.
There are in addition to the camera itself the need for lenses, cases, straps, printers, lessons, bags, tripods, remote controls, computers, development software, printers, photo-quality paper for the printers. You know what I mean.
As an older guy, those times for gift-giving have degenerated into times for serious head-scratching. “Well, I don’t really need anything I guess.”
What do you get someone who has everything??? Well, now you get him photography gear. And there is no end to it now. “Secret Santa,” here I come. You don’t even have to know what the equipment does. Just cut and paste into the search engine and there it is…Add to Cart…Pay Now.
But the photography hobby has also taught me that just as in the old adage “clothes don’t make the man,” “bags full of camera gear doesn’t make the photographer.”
What really counts is slowing down and paying attention to details. Appreciating the moment. Not only looking but seeing. I suppose there is an attractiveness that can be captured by all that complicated and expensive photographic paraphernalia. But it is fleeting.
The real beauty of a photograph that gives you pause when you look at it comes from simplicity, from passion, from the heart. I’m trying to think of those pictures that have just grabbed me and what becomes clear is that there is more of an inspiration going on there than fancy technique and gear.
Playing around with all the gadgets is fun I’ll admit. But what is even more fun is coming across that one in a thousand photos you have taken and realizing that here in your hand is something that just says “Yes!” “Time is stopped. That is how it was. That is how it is.”
It makes them happy I think to see themselves, to see their lives stopped for a moment
My long-suffering family likes my resurrected interest in photography as well. I hope it is more to it than they are happy to not see me out playing out in the street…becoming the subject of a “Gray Alert.”
I’m old school. If I like a shot, I’ll actually print a copy on paper. I won’t just copy it along with all the others onto some flash drive. It’s tangible. You can feel them in your hand. I like to give photos to my children and grandchildren. They like them, or so they say. “Dad, these are good. Thank you.”
It makes them happy I think to see themselves, to see their lives stopped for a moment. I’d like to think that they can make a connection between them selves and the other people in the photographs.
I’ve even caught my super cool grandkids going through some of the old family photo albums, looking at moments, people, places and I’m always a little surprised at how interested they are in those photographs as long as they don’t know I am looking at them when they are checking the albums out.
All I know is that the old photographs and the new ones I’m adding to the collection seem to make them happy.
And if they are happy, then I am happy. Maybe in this retired repose, I find myself in now, I’m not as superfluous as I originally thought. Moments caught, time stopped.
Maybe there is something to this hobby business after all.
