In one of my most cringy moments in dating I looked at my date straight in the eye and told him, "I like to do a lot of stuff. And you are going to have to be okay with that."
3 years later we have a house and a dog. And I still like to do a lot of stuff. Most of the stuff we both like to do - like outdoor stuff. But then there is the photography stuff. The incredibly time consuming photography stuff - that I wasn't quite clear about first date. And as I am becoming more involved and working on my mission it is becoming even more time consuming.
People with hobbies know that to be good at hobbies you need to invest a lot of time. No one woke up good at anything that changes people (except for Justin Timberlake). You know those ass-hats that say "oh I can take amazing photos all I need is a nice camera" - Please call them a mean name (I didn't want to promote physical violence but if you had to punch them I saw nothing).
And with a major hobby comes something more important to photographers than the exposure triangle - the Hobby Triangle.
Totally did this in paint and gave up trying to match the background of my webpage. I'm still calling myself an artist.
The hobby triangle. The thing you must face when you are trying to balance the things you love to do with being a functioning adult.
I have spent A LOT of time on photography. I have stood in one spot for 4 hours starting before sunrise and went home with 200 really bad photos - WITH A FULL FRAME THAT COST A LOT TO RENT. I have stood knee deep in muddy ponds to learn the view was just as bad as where it was dry. I have camped in the rain after hiking 10 miles to get photos of fog instead of mountain vistas. I have bused downtown for an event only to realize I forgot to make sure my camera was taking photos in RAW...and not in sepia. And I have done all of those things over and over again to get the handful of good photos I am proud of. Images I wouldn't have captured if I hadn't repeatably done all those things over and over. Mistakes I would had never learned from if I didn't make them. That is the life of a photographer. Wake up early, stand in miserable conditions, fail, hope your family doesn't kill you for being late to dinner again. Every time I see an opportunity for a personal project the first thing I consider is the hobby triangle.
But it doesn't seem that bad, right? Surely no one would miss me if I took an afternoon or two to myself. I wish that was the case. I'm not done yet, not even close. I wish taking the photo was all the work. That is like celebrating at the top of the mountain, hardly half way through and the bad stuff is most likely to happen on the way down.
First thing I need to do after getting a photo (and going through 1,000 files because I have bit of a crappy camera so I need to take a lot of photos to get it right) is start the post processing. Everyone does post processing. Even Ansel Adams would spend weeks in a dark room after he got the shot. You go ahead and say that shouldn't take a lot of time. There are people out there who think it's cheating and shouldn't be done at all (you can hit them). You can believe what you want to believe. I am the preset queen. I brag about loving flawed photography. But I am still going to take some pride in what I do. Can't just turn up the vibrance all the way and throw it up on flicker. I mean I have and it is my most popular photo...moving on.
I've done things to photos that I'm not proud of.
Ok. So we have taken the photo. We have edited the photo. Now we can finally play with the dog who is about to destroy your favorite pleather chair out of boredom. Right after we throw the photo up on flicker, pinterest, twitter, facebook, instagram, 500px, and imgur so we can post it on reddit without people complaining we didn't use imgur. And on each we just need to give it a description, add a bunch of tags, add location, put it in some albums, and add it to some groups. If there are people tag them. Use hastags, @people. This is where I normally tell Rich I just need 5 minutes and he has learned that means like 5 days to convert from photo time.
So, yeah. I'm not done yet. Did you think you could just post this absolutely amazing photo and that would be that? You know there are like A BILLION photographers with amazing photos, right? Why should they give any of us any attention if we aren't interacting with their community? So before we heat up the cold dinner in the microwave we need to spend some time taking a look at the work of others. Like it, comment on it, share it, ask how they got the shot. The community is the best and most important part. And when everyone is talking and sharing tips and ideas everyone gets better. And instagram is a whole lot more interesting. No one wants to just support others for the sake of supporting others. We have to be there for each other equally. The community is the best investment in time you can make. If you aren't going to do that everything else will be much much harder.
So. Finally. After we are finally done taking the photo, processing the photo, sharing the photo, and interacting with the community - aaaaaaand w have been inspired by something because this is our passion and this is who we are. So now we are going to have to spend the next 8 hours trying to figure out how someone got that shot. And during that research we learn that person will be speaking at a photography expo this weekend. And afterwards there will be a photography meetup where we will learn about even more events and tips and places to take photos and styles we need to try and more people to talk to. And THEN we will need to update our blog with what we are working on because blogging is important because blog. And we have exactly enough time to shower for the first time in 3 days. Or try to see if the dog can remember who we are. Or meet the significant other at the brewery down the road who is celebrating our anniversary. Or perhaps check work email.
What I am trying to say is that photography isn't simple. I spend a lot of time on it. And my incredibly supportive human and dog have made sacrifices so I can do what I love to do and they never complained when I smelled bad. When you see a photo you love just know that whoever took that photo probably put a lot of blood, sweat, and money into getting that shot. And the most wonderful way you can repay them for giving you the opportunity to see such a moving sight is to thank them for their hard work.
To all of the photographers out there - professionals, hobbyist, and all - thank you for all the work you do to show us the world.
Pro Tip: Disguise photo shoots as "family trip!"
Tune in next week for the finance triangle (which can be a cirlce if you want to include credit cards). Very popular among mountaineers who live uncomfortably close to an REI.