For years, it was more than a hobby. A true passion, at some point taking over my free time and pushing the guitar playing into the shadow… About 1977, as I was graduating from the Warsaw Polytechnic, Dept. of Chemistry, I was hooked on photography. The fascination soon became dedication, so I learned quickly, even studied Ansel Adams’s Zone System. I set up a darkroom and spent hours practicing developing negatives and making prints in the traditional silver-gelatin wet process; all was in black&white, of course.
As the years passed I progressed but never went professional. Also, the guitar playing returned to its No 1 position Nowadays I shoot digital, as more convenient, faster and cheaper as the prices of traditional photo materials (still available) have grown enormously. Nonetheless, I still love B&W pictures and strive to make colour desaturation in such a manner that the final image resembled my old B&W prints. Here are some examples; small as they are, I hope they will give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
Nice. I’ve got a decent dSLR but it’s another hobby that I rarely find time for sadly. I think I’d have gone bankrupt with all of the photo developing costs if it wasn’t for digital. Digital has allowed me to experiment with settings on my camera that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I’ve taken lots of photos of motorbikes racing which I couldn’t have done with film because so many are blurred or cropped because trying to capture a speeding object isn’t easy.
I find the technical side of using a dSLR quite easy, but I’m less good where imagination is involved, looking at a scene or object and making an interesting photo from it,
My plans for 2025 include doing more walking in the countryside which in turn should allow me to use my camera more.
I’ve never really dabbled in black and white, maybe should give it a try
On my side, I sometimes felt like “in the zone” and got great photographs, at other times, felt like only being slightly above the average grandma taking photos
After DSLRs became more affordable, bought one, but was always looking forward to the day when I would afford a camera with a bigger viewfinder again. I found that was a big part of the joy at the time with my old film SLR.
Me too, love B&W and often put the digital images into black and white. Architecture and portraits mainly, I think.
Way back, I studied Photography at school it was a subject for us then. Taking, developing, theory, history of etc etc. I too even later in life had my own processing hardware for colour and my wife and I did colour and B&W for a few years at home.
I had to be dragged screaming into the digital era but never looked back really. I’ve always had a keen interest in photography but there is only so much time to dedicate to intensive hobbies, and I’ve had a few
I too enjoy photography, but from a different viewpoint. I enjoy manipulating the camera and don’t tend to look at the photo afterwards. I tend to take close-up pictures and get interesting color and perspective into the shot. It is certainly not as much of an interest as playing guitar.
I like the B&W look. My wife and I had our wedding photographers take a few rolls of B&W and those pictures came out in many ways more interesting to look at than the color.
I was the family photographer for many years shooting hundreds of rolls of black & white and colour on my trusty Olympus OM2. I developed my black & white films and printed the photos in my attic but sent the colour stuff off to the photo lab.
With the advent of digital I bought a compact Canon and for a while enjoyed the ease of autofocus and huge zoom on a small pocket sized camera. No more lugging several different lenses around. I also enjoyed the ability to manipulate the photos on computer. The thing I missed most about my old OM2 was looking through the viewfinder and framing the shot exactly as I wanted it. I felt as if I was really ‘in’ the photo. With the compact I was looking at the screen on the back and taking the photo knowing I could crop it later on. I found that other than holiday snaps I was no longer taking photos. I didn’t graduate to a digital SLR and my long standing interest in photography waned.
Now of course with camera phones everyone takes photos of everything and uploads them, posts them, shares them. Somehow the magic has gone, at least for me, from the process.
Fantastic Coda. I love photography. I used to be super big into it. When I was a snowboard and climber there was always a pro photographer with our group taking photos and I would constantly be hitting them up with questions. They always had such nice gear. I only had my point and shoot. I shot my friends doing fun stuff, mountains and the outdoors. Some of the most cherished photos i have ever taken.
I later got a better film camera and started doing my own B&W and development. I really enjoied that.
Then digital came out, Photoshop and Lightroom. it was too much stitting at a computer for me. I have and can use well it but real life started and family was had. Im am sure many know how that goes.
Good old contact sheets I have hundreds of these from the 90s still and my negs.
This is true to an extent but there’s still photos that I’ve taken that couldn’t have been captured with anything other than a SLR/dSLR. Even if you only have a phone camera then the “rules” of composition can be applied and will separate a good photo from the masses.
I do know what you mean though about how fixing it later does detract from the experience. Certainly many of my favourite photos have needed minimal digital tweaking. That said, some degree of digital tweaking is normal. It’s only recreating the process of the darkroom in a digital format. A photo in RAW format is just the digital negative really.
I’m truly grateful for all your replies whose number has already now exceeded my expectations, even though it shouldn’t be surprising that photography was and still is a hobby of many…
That’s exactly my impression, too…
That’s right, that’s exactly what I do, with no more tweaking than necessary for the conversion to B&W, correction of contrast and gamma (I do it usually via the histogram adjustments). I take many pics that I leave in the colour version (I’ve never done the colour processing of traditional films).
Of course. I think it’s the carelessness of photography now that I don’t like. Back in the day you had 36 frames on your film and you hoped a handful would be good and maybe one might be the one that would end up being worthy of being put in a frame. Now people take dozens of the same view with autofocus and camera trickery so the success rate is much higher.
There was nothing to beat being hunched over the tray of chemicals, moving the print about with your tongs and watching as the image slowly appeared. Magical.
Phone cameras also tend to have no depth-of-field, or they apply it artificially as a “filter”.
My first SLR was a Zenit E and it really only had 3 manual controls, and I learned a load about photography by having it because everything was so manual and required fore-thought to avoid burning a precious exposure.
One of the really nice things about it is you could see the depth-of-field in real-time through the viewfinder as you adjusted the aperture.
And if you used it with Hoya or Cokin creative filters (actual, physical filters), you could also see the filter effect.
Started taking an inetrest in photography last year, so far I have 3 cameras lol, all micro four thirds, an Olympus EM1 mk1m, olympus EM10 mk2 and a Panaonic G5, All older cameras but do the job for me. Only have a couple of lenses at the minute the Olympus 14-42 EZ, olympus 40-150 f4/5,6 and the panasonic 45-150 f4/5,6, and a vintage film era Pentax 50mm f1.7 that I use an adapter and extention tubes on for close up/ macro style shots, again all budget lenses, but work fo me.
Here are a couple of shots I have taken, A squirrel at the bottom of the garden, an artificial flower using a suit jacket as a background, with an led torch for lighting, and a close up shot of some ice crystals that form on my dustbin lid.
I was completely crazy about street photography for a little bit more than 4 years. I lived in Singapore and used to walk around the city with my camera or travel in South east Asia for holidays and photography. I read thousands of pages regarding street photography, built very cool book collection of the greats, been very active in online discussions. Proper passion. Then my daughter was born in 2015 and my free time to travel and roam the city reduced to 0. Few photos below, first ones exploring some shapes and light, as I was scared to take photos of people. Then it evolved in proper street photography. I have such a great memory of that time.
@Andy19634 : Those are great photos; the crystals look amazing, the other two are just fine, too. Thanks for your input @RobDickinson@Boris1565 : Thank you so much for contributing; great images, viewed with pleasure.
Nowadays I shoot digital, as more convenient, faster and cheaper as the prices of traditional photo materials (still available) have grown enormously. Nonetheless, I still love B&W pictures and strive to make colour desaturation in such a manner that the final image resembled my old B&W prints. Here are some examples; small as they are, I hope they will give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
but never looked back really. I’ve always had a keen interest in photography but there is only so much time to dedicate to intensive hobbies, and I’ve had a few 
