PHOTOGRAPHY SLUMP and MOTIVATION

My father had been into photography with his AGFA bellows camera for many years.  As a kid, I always wanted to take pictures with his camera.  Seeing my interest in taking pictures, my father bought me a Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash camera for my 6th birthday.   Because we lived basically pay check to pay check, my father limited me to one roll of film per month.  The film only had 12 exposures, if I remember correctly, so I would go through that roll of film in 1 or 2 days.

My interest in taking pictures only lasted a couple of years.  However, when I turned 12, I got a paper route and could afford to buy a new camera and I bought myself one of the first Kodak Instamatic cameras.  I used that camera for a few years and again, due to other activities that interested me at the time, photography took a back seat once again.

It wasn't until I was graduating from high school and saw all the cool photos in our Yearbook that classmates had taken, that my interest came back.  I felt behind the times with my Instamatic camera, so after working in the Mill during summer and holiday breaks from college, I had enough money to buy my first SLR camera, a Minolta SRT 101.  Soon after, I bought several lenses and I was off and running.

From 1970 for a number of years, friends and I would backpack almost every weekend and take landscape and wildlife photos as much as we could.  My friends and I would get together fairly often to have a slide show evening.  It was great sharing my photos to other photography interested friends and seeing their work.  Once my backpacking days were over and the slide show evenings died off, my interest in photography also died off.  At that point I was taking family shots during special occasions but wasn't really into it.  I just didn't feel like I had the scenery or wildlife close to home that would make for interesting photos.  I also realized I had no one except for my wife on occasion to look at my photos.  Consequently, I felt that I didn’t have interesting things to take photos of and felt that why take photos if only I was seeing them.

All that changed for me when social media came out.  This gave me an opportunity and a means of sharing my photos with friends and family.  I also came to the realization that, from seeing what other photographers were posting on social media, that interesting photos can be taken everywhere around the house and nearby.   I realized that my whole interest in photography was based on me being able to take interesting photos and sharing them so people actually saw my work.

So why am I telling you all of this?  Well, my interest in taking pictures was always peaked when I had a means of sharing my photos with others.  Just like artists and craftsmen, we want other people to see our work.  In our Camera Club, we have a number of means of sharing our photos.  We have Monthly Image Challenges, Digital and Print Gallery Nights, Library Photo Displays, Summer Scavenger Hunts, the Website Gallery, the Facebook Group and Club Outings.  These are the opportunities to show others your talents and learn from constructive criticism.  Please, take advantage of them and hopefully, that will motivate you to take and share your photos.