When I bought my first digital camera back in 2003 (HP PhotoSmart C850), a new digital era started for me, and beginning from that date, I currently have about 6000 photos and 1000 videos in my collection, or 67.7 GB of storage space occupied on several computers or HD media. Comparing it to a sum of up to 500 analog photos I scanned from the pre-digital era, this is really a milestone in everybody's family collection. Pushed by my father's old analog photo laboratory when I was a little kid, I got interested in photography. We always tended to make some not-so-ordinary photos -nice black-and-white and early color photos with not only people on them.
There are plenty of out-of-the-ordinary staged photos. I remember we even made montaged photos including a couple of UFOs we made out of kitchen plates, modeling clay, and fishing strings. It looks like photoshopping today destroyed all that productivity, since there is no need for that kind of "production" nowadays. Anyways, to conclude this analog era, I can only say I miss it very much. Those images have something more compared to digital photos simply because they always trigger some nostalgic memories. At least with me. However, back to digital stock, over time it increased in both ways, quality and quantity - firstly because every next generation of photo cameras is simply better than the previous one. I have more and more difficulties keeping it safe with a couple of backups in different places; it requires more and more effort and time, but this is important—losing photos is like losing your life's work or special diary, so I am maintaining photos and videos on two computers and one external hard disk, and soon I will have to do something more and buy another storage medium.
Besides the simple fact that photos and video clips will outlive us, there is one exceptional use if they pile up over the years in enormous numbers. I am looking at my son and how he, every now and then, is watching clips from previous years and how his memory is better than ours. We "analog people" don't really have many memories from early childhood compared to modern kids who now have this possibility to constantly remind themselves by watching old photos and clips, and this activity simply keeps them from forgetting things, events, and the fast fading of old memories. On second thought, within a couple of decades or centuries, evolution will definitely react by making changes in human brains, just because of the large stock of digital photos and videos in everybody's family collection.
Presentation of family photos and videos is also one big part of the digital era. When I started with this, I owned my web page with a selection of all my images and clips. However, this was really a big effort, and after a couple of years, I simply realized that it took me lots of my free and professional time, and I don't mean just uploading material to the server. I had to maintain my own web page; later I even wrote a web application to shorten this time, but maintaining slide shows, design, publishing activities, etc., was simply the drop that overfilled the glass. So I abandoned all that and moved them to social media. That was nice for some time, but I never lost the feeling that this is not the right place where this public media should be kept, so most of the photos are now located within this blog. Finally, one more thing is also important, and that is constant learning of new technologies and improving photography skills. I don't think for this I need to be some technological geek; this is just a matter of watching other people's photos and clips, following professional photographers, and and reading and watching interesting articles in specialized magazines, blogs, papers, and online media, and the result is always satisfying.
In conclusion, the question "Is this a hobby?" triggers the immediate answer "Not anymore!". Taking family and artistic photos is one simple social activity, just like phoning, emailing, or watching TV. It requires money and time, but the result is always there for you to enjoy daily.
Early color photos - Analog SLR, Polaroid, and point-and-shoot
There are plenty of out-of-the-ordinary staged photos. I remember we even made montaged photos including a couple of UFOs we made out of kitchen plates, modeling clay, and fishing strings. It looks like photoshopping today destroyed all that productivity, since there is no need for that kind of "production" nowadays. Anyways, to conclude this analog era, I can only say I miss it very much. Those images have something more compared to digital photos simply because they always trigger some nostalgic memories. At least with me. However, back to digital stock, over time it increased in both ways, quality and quantity - firstly because every next generation of photo cameras is simply better than the previous one. I have more and more difficulties keeping it safe with a couple of backups in different places; it requires more and more effort and time, but this is important—losing photos is like losing your life's work or special diary, so I am maintaining photos and videos on two computers and one external hard disk, and soon I will have to do something more and buy another storage medium.
Besides the simple fact that photos and video clips will outlive us, there is one exceptional use if they pile up over the years in enormous numbers. I am looking at my son and how he, every now and then, is watching clips from previous years and how his memory is better than ours. We "analog people" don't really have many memories from early childhood compared to modern kids who now have this possibility to constantly remind themselves by watching old photos and clips, and this activity simply keeps them from forgetting things, events, and the fast fading of old memories. On second thought, within a couple of decades or centuries, evolution will definitely react by making changes in human brains, just because of the large stock of digital photos and videos in everybody's family collection.
Current color photos - Digital compact, Smartphone and dSLR
Presentation of family photos and videos is also one big part of the digital era. When I started with this, I owned my web page with a selection of all my images and clips. However, this was really a big effort, and after a couple of years, I simply realized that it took me lots of my free and professional time, and I don't mean just uploading material to the server. I had to maintain my own web page; later I even wrote a web application to shorten this time, but maintaining slide shows, design, publishing activities, etc., was simply the drop that overfilled the glass. So I abandoned all that and moved them to social media. That was nice for some time, but I never lost the feeling that this is not the right place where this public media should be kept, so most of the photos are now located within this blog. Finally, one more thing is also important, and that is constant learning of new technologies and improving photography skills. I don't think for this I need to be some technological geek; this is just a matter of watching other people's photos and clips, following professional photographers, and and reading and watching interesting articles in specialized magazines, blogs, papers, and online media, and the result is always satisfying.
In conclusion, the question "Is this a hobby?" triggers the immediate answer "Not anymore!". Taking family and artistic photos is one simple social activity, just like phoning, emailing, or watching TV. It requires money and time, but the result is always there for you to enjoy daily.