Graham Line
Well-known
Interesting discussion. It's not just a photography think. As a side job, I worked for the publisher of a model railroad hobbyist magazine for about 10 years, doing editorial and photographic work and saw exactly the same things. It was easy to buy a lot of scale model trains and proclaim yourself a modeler, and it was easy to follow press releases and discussions and repeat that as your own findings in discussions. Many people bought items, stacked them on shelves, and never did anything with them. Sound familiar? Maybe 10% of the magazine's subscribers were actively, hands-on involved involved in the hobby, thinking original thoughts, and able to write or talk or video intelligently about what they were doing. That's just people. Some feel very involved even when they are barely scratching the surface of the field. Some of the most involved, sadly, are so busy they have no time to write about it, or their discoveries seem so obvious to them that can't imagine sharing them. In any case, the real artists are pretty inspiring.