My recent experiences and experimentations in photography have led me to reflect on photography as an avocation.

I got my first decent camera at the age of 14. I was keen on astronomy and wanted to capture what I was seeing through my telescopes. I did a lot of experimentation with unguided and untracked widefield photography as well as building a simple tracker to follow the apparent motion of the stars across the sky and hooking the camera up to the telescope and doing some lunar photography. Gradually my interest in photography expanded to other areas, I got involved with a camera club, setup a home darkroom and went from there. I was also a keen model builder as a kid, so I started doing macro photography of my model tanks and tried to get realistic results, I loved trying to shoot birds and landscapes, and naturally shot my school friends too.

University and then my first marriage distracted me from astronomy and some of my photography interests but kept my interests in landscape photography going. Travel with work helped to feed this interest in the landscape. Divorce and then a second marriage didn’t really change these photographic interests, but with my second wife (an artist) my interest in art photography grew and led to a growing passion for abstraction in my photographic works. It was also in this period that I started combining my passion and professional interest in computer graphics with my photography and started exhibiting.

The death of my second wife and then my marriage to third wife (another artist who is a great support and encouragement) didn’t really change these interests but changed how I approached them. Starting then I changed career and started writing about photography and digital imaging full time (I’d been writing part-time for may years while being a university academic in computer graphics). This professional interest in photography led me to expand greatly the range of photography that I explored, the type of equipment I used and my approach. It also led to doing work as a professional photographer.

My personal work went more heavily into creating digital photo-montages and mixing my expertise in photography and computer graphics. This led me away from an interest in the pure photographic image and more to a simpler form of photography that I could combine on the computer.

Most recently my interest and approach has changed yet again. My daughter’s interests in astronomy and microscopes has led me to re-engage with astro-photography and with photomicroscopy, the latter also reigniting my passion for macro photography (real and simulated). Further, experiments in digital infrared photography I did many years ago have resurfaced and led me to a real passion in IR and again with the single image.

Why am I waffling on about my history with photography? It is because I was reflecting on this the other day and through that on conversions I have had with many other photographers, both professionals and hobbyists. I realised that many photographers, perhaps all, go through different periods in their photographic life when they are more or less passionate, perhaps bored with it, hating what they do (if they are forced to keep shooting, perhaps to earn a living), or experience periods of intense interest in one area of photography to be eventually replaced by equal passion about another. Your personal and professional life goes through stages and changes, so why shouldn’t your interest in something like photography. We have an image that people should find their passion and then that should carry them through forever, but I think it is natural for our interests to wax and wane. In fact I think the way to maintain a long-term interest in photography is to be varied and to explore new ideas, approaches and to generally stir things up. Try macro, infrared, montage, heavy manipulation and the pure image, landscape, portrait, the nude, street photography, night photography and anything else you can think of.

Respond to periods in your life and make your photography part of your full life, not just something you do on weekends or occasionally. Be flexible and not rigid. Sure, that digital SLR you have may take the best shots but carry a compact digital with you when you go to work, say, so that you can shoot anytime you get a chance. Keep one in the car or take one when you go shopping, to drop the kids off somewhere or whatever. If you feel yourself getting stale, change something, anything, try a new technique or subject matter.

All photographic experience helps you. There is this theory that it takes 10 years of concerted practice to really make it at something. In fact, the latest research is suggesting that there may be no such thing as natural genius, just some natural affinities, and that hidden behind the apparent super talents has been lots of hard work. It is also showing that almost anyone can achieve at the highest levels of their chosen field if they just put in the effort. Remember that all the different forms of photography have more in common than they are different. They all train your eye, get you thinking about composition, exposure, etc. So they all contribute to building experience and knowledge. They can also break you out of that rut you have sunk into.

When I look back over my 35 years in photography I can see waves of interest in the different areas of photography that have come and gone and often enough come back again sometime later. Each time I return to an area my perceptions and the angle with which I approach it has changed, morphed and grown. This is great, it makes my passion of photography a living, breathing thing, with its own cycles and patterns that run in parallel with and are interrelated to the other cycles and patterns in my life.

I love photography. You meet great people, can express yourself and get the opportunity to mix technology with art, which suits my personality perfectly. Plus there are so many different forms, techniques and subjects, that you need never be bored. You can really take a holiday from photography by still doing it. It is such a great hobby and you can always mix it with your other interests.