How to recover the initial photography interest..

Jaime M

Jaime M

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That's the continuous though that's running trough my head. For he context I'm 36M.

I've been interested in photography for almost 20 years. I read every article and book, join that thing called Flickr, enjoyed every video of the first YouTube years, talked with every guy with a camera and discussed about the photography art at every chance I had and really enjoyed taking pictures, delevope my own film and even enjoyed the scanner process! Didn't have the MP that I desired but I enjoyed every shot with my Yashica GSN and the old EOS650 from my parents.
I was young and during my studies every time that I earned some pocket money I saved it until I got some fancy gear, my first Leica. Later after graduating and had a good position in a company I start buying all the gear that I always was reviewing online.. but was no longer taking photos.

The moment after I bought my grail camera, Mamiya 7, was an inflection point. I run a couple of rolls of film, and put it in the shelf. I didn't find it fun anymore, and the pictures even top quality were disappointing. Quick conclusion it was the phographer, not the gear.

Since then, 4-5 years ago, I could not find any joy in it. I recently sold the Mamiya, and have not regrets. I still have plenty of gear, film, and zero will to photograph anything. My wife don't want me to sell any more of my gear, because we had a lot of our memories linked to photography and she is convinced that I will come back to it.
A lot had happened in my life since my golden days of photography, I don't even feel I'm the same person for many other reasons. Maybe I see my photo hobby like a anchor to that part of my life.

Did something similar happened to any of you? Do you regret selling the gear that required so much effort to get? Do you miss the photography "lifestyle" that you had?
It is possible to get that initial feeling again?

I was not sure of sharing this even safety net of a non-personal photo forum but writing it down removes a bit from it from my chest.
 
You can't go back. You have to forge on into something that interests you. Gear don't mean squat, really. Sell what you want and only keep what is necessary for simple family stuff. After a while, you'll probably find some spark to ignite the old interests again. If not, so be it. It's something that was but now it's not.

My most recent story: I've been shooting nothing but digital since about 2008. But a few months ago I thought I might enjoy shooting film again. Bought a couple of Nikon film bodies (I already have a ton of Nikkor lenses), a few rolls of B&W film, developer, fixer, etc. (I already have reels, tanks and stuff). I loaded up the cameras, put on lenses and went out shooting but was amazed at how uninspiring it felt to deal with film. After trying this for several days I looked at the rolls of film on the shelf and realized I had no incentive or desire to do the darkroom thing again. But I had to try going back to what was for me a very creative and enjoyable period. But that's gone for me. I now do better photos with my digital stuff and I enjoy doing it.
 
Jaime M said:
Did something similar happened to any of you? Do you regret selling the gear that required so much effort to get? Do you miss the photography "lifestyle" that you had?
It is possible to get that initial feeling again?
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing. Nothing quite like this but I go through regular ebbs and flows with taking photos. I never tire, though, of looking at others' pictures, watching films and documentaries on photography. The ultimate joy right now is to hunt for old photography books in old bookshops and bouquinistes.

If you can, do keep the gear, you never know when the joy might come back ; or when you might be able to inspire someone else into photography. I strongly suspect it will come back - the joy - but when you least expect it, and probably with the slowest/cheapest gear you have.

Do you print your photos? I've always thought that was key to photography. Screens and pixels can be a mood-killer.

Another thought, if there is a local photography club, you could maybe have conversations that would rekindle an interest.

All the best!
 
Photography is just one of many serious hobbies for me (bit of a problem how many I have, honestly). My interest in them all kind of ebbs and flows. I first really got into photography as a teenager in the late 90s with an APS camera that I saved up and bought. That lasted a few years. Later, in 2007ish, I got back into it in a big way. I bought my first serious digital camera (Canon 40D, still have it), got my Dad's Canon A-1 CLA'd, started shooting a lot, learned to develop my own film, bought quite a few mostly cheap cameras, etc. I kept that up until 2012, when other interests took over for a while, though I continued to regularly shoot digital and occasionally a roll or two of film. A few years ago, I went to Africa and of course wanted to take photos of animals along with normal travel photos. Got a new digital camera with a good long zoom lens. But while I was there, I found a cheap half frame camera in an antiques shop. I found some film for it (not easy in Namibia!), and shot stuff on it the rest of the trip. For some reason, that got me hooked on film again, and since then I've gotten back into it in a big way, including learning to darkroom print my own stuff (absolute magic). I've also joined a local photo club that does regular photo walks, collaborates on exhibitions, etc. The social aspect of it has been a ton of fun, and I've made some great new friends.

I'm sure it won't last forever and some other new or old hobby will take over for a while. None of it bothers me. Getting to learn all about things, practice, get good at them, and just enjoy them is one of the things that makes me love life. But there shouldn't be any pressure. If you're not feeling photography right now, do something else that does interest you right now. You may or may not get the photography bug again. Personally, I wouldn't sell my gear, but I'm a bit of a packrat and a collector. Certainly my dream Leica MP that I finally got a couple years ago is a forever camera and I have zero intention of selling it ever.
 
Jaime M said:
... Did something similar happened to any of you? Do you regret selling the gear that required so much effort to get? Do you miss the photography "lifestyle" that you had?
It is possible to get that initial feeling again?

I was not sure of sharing this even safety net of a non-personal photo forum but writing it down removes a bit from it from my chest.
Click to expand...
Your post provoked me in a number of ways. I've been shooting for over 50-years and the hobby has ebbed and flowed. I've gone for years without shooting - then it comes back. The cycle repeats. A number of things could light the spark - meeting someone who inspires me, or simply the intangible bug to start shooting again. When digital hit full-force, I lost interest quickly because I enjoyed the film shooting experience more, but now I prefer digital.

Sharing my work has kept me going these last 20+ years, but YMMV. If the interest just isn't there, don't fight it.

I'd pare it down to, say one body and three lenses and get rid of the rest. When/if the spark is lit again, then go out and shoot.
 
There was a time as a child that collecting coins was the single most important thing for me. After 2-3 years, and having had a decent collection with coins from around the world, I realised that i was interested in basketball more. It became the single most important thing.

I played basketball for a number of years until studies, then work and the family came along. Now, 30 years later, I can't play to save my life. I still enjoy watching it on tv thought.

There are some things that are important for us at some point in life: they run their course and we leave them behind. We are thankful for the role they played during that period of our lives and happy for the nice memories of them and we move on.

Maybe that's what happened to you. Maybe it will come back to you at some point - who knows?

Just remember to leave the door ajar.
 
I sometimes wander without a camera, just trying to “see” pictures. The camera is just s tool to help capture it. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but it concentrates me on what it takes to get what I want - to get the job done. (Most) good pictures are work.
 
Jaime M said:
It is possible to get that initial feeling again?
Click to expand...
Maybe, and seeing the answers above, the way to get there is different for everyone.

About two years back, after shooting digital a lot, all of a sudden I noticed the joy was not there anymore. One day all was fine, the next day it wasn't. Upon reflection, I attributed it to the ease of shooting digital indiscriminately; just shoot and look whether there's something to keep. It's not a recipe for good images.

How different from when I started in the late 70's when a roll of film and having it developed and printed would eat up all my pocket money; every shot was carefully considered, and as a result would have at least some meaning instead of just being one image out of a stack of discards.

I decided to mostly mothball the digitals, put a roll of Portra 160 in an RF again and take it out for a spin. And that's when it started to come back. All mechanical, uncluttered viewfinder, no menus, no instant feedback, no spray and pray... that's what it took for me to enjoy shooting. It's still not quite that sense of wonder that I had getting prints back in the 70's, but it's close.
 
Jaime M said:
That's the continuous though that's running trough my head. For he context I'm 36M.

I've been interested in photography for almost 20 years. I read every article and book, join that thing called Flickr, enjoyed every video of the first YouTube years, talked with every guy with a camera and discussed about the photography art at every chance I had and really enjoyed taking pictures, delevope my own film and even enjoyed the scanner process! Didn't have the MP that I desired but I enjoyed every shot with my Yashica GSN and the old EOS650 from my parents.
I was young and during my studies every time that I earned some pocket money I saved it until I got some fancy gear, my first Leica. Later after graduating and had a good position in a company I start buying all the gear that I always was reviewing online.. but was no longer taking photos.

The moment after I bought my grail camera, Mamiya 7, was an inflection point. I run a couple of rolls of film, and put it in the shelf. I didn't find it fun anymore, and the pictures even top quality were disappointing. Quick conclusion it was the phographer, not the gear.

Since then, 4-5 years ago, I could not find any joy in it. I recently sold the Mamiya, and have not regrets. I still have plenty of gear, film, and zero will to photograph anything. My wife don't want me to sell any more of my gear, because we had a lot of our memories linked to photography and she is convinced that I will come back to it.
A lot had happened in my life since my golden days of photography, I don't even feel I'm the same person for many other reasons. Maybe I see my photo hobby like a anchor to that part of my life.

Did something similar happened to any of you? Do you regret selling the gear that required so much effort to get? Do you miss the photography "lifestyle" that you had?
It is possible to get that initial feeling again?

I was not sure of sharing this even safety net of a non-personal photo forum but writing it down removes a bit from it from my chest.
Click to expand...
Yes. It happened to me. I got a BFA in photography and after that didn’t photograph seriously for 10 years! I sold all of my equipment and started making music instead. However, after those 10 years I restarted in 2008 and have been photographing with a renewed passion and clarity since then. There will always be equipment to buy and when and if you get back into it, your approach and the equipment needed will change most likely. I would not stress any if it. You cannot force it. Enjoy life. Adult jobs change priorities and affect your life a lot. You will fit photography back in when the time is right.

PS: I also quit making music for way over 10 years and started doing that again too. I stressed out about photography and music the first time. I came back to both without stress and with renewed clarity.
 
Maybe take a break and don’t think about it at all. Sell whatever you won‘t regret but not all of your gear. The interest will eventually come back, you can’t force it (the more you try, the more frustrated you will become).
 
On a similar note, even though I have the desire to get out and photograph, my age has slowed my travel to places within about 40 miles which leaves the same small towns and locations. Sometimes I feel I have shot everything too many times.

Fortunately, I have been a camera collector for years so, like the reply about buying a Holga, I have found something different to shoot gets me out looking to find a different view or a different look for the old areas. I shoot Holagas a lot as well as from 16mm to 4X5 plus real oddballs like the Pinsta (in-camera developing with syringes) camera. Shooting at night has helped too. Additionally, really different films like infrared (with 720mm filter), ISO 1 film, soundtrack film, etc. will get the juices flowing. I seem to be shooting more and more now. (I develop my own color and B&W but haven't gone back to printing, yet.
 
I strive to never lose the sense of wonder and amazement that I felt as a beginner. And a few ways I go about this include:

Not buying stuff simply because I "need" to complete a system. IIRC, my Mamiya 6 outfit consisted of the camera body, 75 mm lens, and lens shade. I didn't care about the telephoto lens, never got around to pursuing the wide angle lens, and enjoyed it a lot. And I don't currently own any motor drives, dedicated flashes or data backs because they don't particularly interest me.

Being as analog as I wanna be, which is sometimes not at all!

Giving myself permission to take "bad" photos, and to pursue "inferior" equipment if it pleases me to do so.

Seeing the everyday world not simply as same-old settings and situations, but as changing shapes, textures and colors.

Not confusing the shopping-for/comparison/testing/pursuit/acquisition/collecting of cameras for photography, however enjoyable the process may be.
 
I suspect we’ve all been there and the interest and enthusiasm ebbs and flows along with other things in life. Sometimes there is no energy left or something else is just more interesting. Sometimes the needs of life - I’m deliberately not saying duties - are all encompassing. This is all part of stuff.

Don’t worry and be ready to let it go and embrace change. Or just try something really different within photography but without pressure to succeed. If you’re time crunches then something easy? I grabbed 15 minutes in a local war cemetery one lunchtime this week and took 11 pictures. I’ve not developed the film yet - but it was time on my own and outside. That was enough.

In terms of gear, my wife always tells me not to sell stuff - so I don’t have to buy it again later. A couple of years ago she said to not sell my film cameras, and with hindsight she was right. But other times I’ve let stuff go and never regretted. It’s just stuff.

One other thing that strikes me is that I sometimes find too much choice crippling. I’ve never felt I lost out by carrying one camera and one lens, leaving lots at home! Even only shooting mono has been fine - except make some colour pics of your family.
 
Like most say here, interests ebb and flow, so the more you accept that this will occur, the more comfortable you will feel to allowing it to return. You might like to think of why you want to reignite your original photographic interest - sometimes we tie a sense of self to an interest, and a diminishing of that interest can be seen as a betrayal of that self image. But this doesn't account for us being much more than what interests us.

You might also consider what you gained from photography in the original times. Was it a desire to capture things? A desire to make art? A fascination with gear? The opportunity to communicate with like-minded people and the sense of camaraderie that comes from it? A mixture of those things? Whatever your motivations and rewards, perhaps you can find fulfillment of those desires in other interests.

Sometimes, interests will reemerge in another form. I was just reading an account of a photographer who started with surf photography for fun, got into freelance work, eventually shifted to full time freelance photography, but later found it increasingly difficult to book jobs in the post-pandemic world. He gave up photography completely for a while, and focused on a new career as an EMT. But now he goes out with a plate camera and photographs landscapes for fun, and he loves it.

I used to be a writer, in what seems like such a long time ago. I churned out pages and pages of short fiction, worked on a couple of novels, read everything I could about the craft of writing. But eventually, other interests took its place, and for a long time, I struggled with no longer having the drive to write. Years later, I found myself participating in online forums, writing voluminous emails to friends and family, and all the lessons I learned from fiction emerged in this form. Now I work in documentary production, and the lessons of fiction writing play a great role in storyline construction.

Nothing is ever wasted. Everything we learn can be repurposed, and we can find fulfillment in ways that we would never have considered in the past. You don't 'have to' do anything, you can follow whatever interests you have because they make you feel good. And you may find yourself pleasantly surprised when the lessons of photography emerge in ways you never expected.
 
Thank you all for the replies. Its has been really nice to read you gentlemen.

I read a lot of good advices here. I understand that not only the ebb and flow of hobbies but life as well.
I loved when I had this little travels with my wife and took picture of here. The same with my family and friends, not necessarily special occasions but daily stuff. I will try that again to find the spark, or only for the sake of having fun!

And about thinking for it a lot this week, I conclude that I not miss only the photography and its process, I miss it but I miss my family and friends. Life changed a lot and I have to accept it. Maybe I can use this hobby to help me to do it.
 
Like others have said, interest in photography tends to ebb and flow. Personally, I find that my digital photography and my film photography ebb and flow on different schedules, not really related to each other. Sometimes the tactile experience of shooting, developing and scanning film is a balm to the soul; sometimes it isn't. Lately I haven't had the willpower to spend my limited free time with the Lab-Box and chemicals (or scanning). But digital still offers the ability to have a(n almost) daily process of shooting during my work week.

I resist giving (or taking) the advice to buy something new when you're feeling uninspired (although we all know that it does sort of work for a while), but... maybe pick up a Ricoh GRIII or GRIIIx and start making snapshots of all of your daily experiences. It's a much different feeling than deliberately shooting and developing film, but it can be really rewarding as well. I mention the GR series cameras specifically because they are almost the only cameras really designed from the ground up specifically for this kind of shooting, and their output is really tuned to be great.
 
My interest has always been high, but my time and budget cause the ability to fulfill that need in my life to be creative to ebb and flow. While I love my iPhone 12 Pro, I find it frustrating not to have the control over it that helps fulfill my visions. But, it's with me all the time, much better than not.

My oldest gave me back my XE-3 that he had on a long-term loan while he moved to DC. I suspect I'll be giving it back to him when he comes back to visit in a couple of months. I found that the more a camera allowed me to control different aspects the happier I was. While the Ricoh GRs that I've owned weren't perfect, they were damn fun. The Nikon ZF or ZFc look interesting as the Nikkors I love I either have or their price hasn't risen too badly.

Best of luck on getting back in your grove.

B2 (;->
 
Hmmm, You got your Grail camera and then got bored.

Maybe your grail camera wasn't quite as wonderful as you thought it would be, or maybe you realised that in general terms, you couldn't do much more with it than you could with your other cameras?

I went through a not dissimilar "let down by the object" thing with a Tasco 16-45x50 telescope when I was about 11. I'd really looked forward to it, partly through reasoning that a moon magnified 4x would look four times bigger eg. instead of being the size of a 5p coin it would be the size of a 50p coin, so at 16x, the ruddy moon wold look ginormous! Pfffftt! The results were a little disappointing. Although now I could see the Orion nebula and just about see four of Jupiter's moons, it was still rather a let down, partly for the sizes of things and partly for the feeling of "Is that it? What do I do now?" I wanted to do something practical with it, so I began to look for cameras that could be fixed to telescopes. There wasn't much point as my telescope didn't have a removable eyepiece and I knew of no adapters, and I couldn't afford a camera that could be fitted to it anyway.

Anyway, I think many people get bored with taking photos or with bits of gear, but a way of giving yourself a reason to take photos could be useful. Do you have a CD of songs you've taken from different albums? You could try working out a photo for the cover. Im trying to do this with an album that was never released by a group that didn't last long, so there is no official album cover. Or if you have a favourite poem you could try illustrating that. Of course, none of these suggestions will help if you just don't feel like taking photos. If that's the case, then don't take any photos for a while you may one day get out of bed and feel the need again. Just don't sweat it.
 
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