Choose A Job You Love...

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life

- Confucius

“Oh man, this one kills me. It’s so frequently repeated that hardly anyone questions its truth anymore. And the sad fact is this: If you do what you love for a living, you’ll probably end up loving it a little bit less.”

- An excerpt from Bad Career Advice: Do What You Love and You'll Never Work a Day

 - Chrissy Scivicque Forbes Contributor

LIFE AND LOVE

I love taking pictures.  I have loved it since I began when I was 15 years old when my Dad began teaching me the finer points of the art, “People are the most important, Larry.  You have to have people in the shot…”  That was his thoughts on the subject and I have remembered that all my life.

Bob and Deb Martinez

Michaela Bonnett

Scott and Jill Stocking Wedding

He has never been one for landscapes.  “In years you'll see that and think, ‘why did I take that?’” Sometimes that is true; people are a great way to “date” an image or show scale or flag a memory.

  

 Dad and I pursued photography for different reasons.  He was fascinated with the science parts.  He told me on the occasion of giving me his collection of negatives.  He made all of his “machines” himself.  He would go the public library and read about how to do it then he would make the items he needed, pinhole camera, enlarging box (most if not all of his were contact prints, those are prints made by placing the negative directly on the light sensitive paper and exposing that to light of some kind).  He would buy his chemistry by mail order and paper too.  His darkroom was a corner of the attic of the house in which he lived.  His paper route financed most of these purchases.  His images are, frankly, excellent.  They depict life in the 40’s and 50’s in rural and small town Nebraska.  This whole activity, mind you, by a kid during the depression era.  I think it is amazing!  I am so fortunate to have possession of this collection.

Charles Augustus and Ella Anderson
with Mary Lou Taddiken

Netty Timm with Bob, Roger
and Ortrude Anderson

Charles Guy Anderson - State Safety Patrol

Now, I got interested in it, not for the science but because my Dad was into it.  He was usually very technical about it.  I learned to shoot on a 1956 Voigtländer Vito Automatic viewfinder 35mm camera (which I have proudly added to my camera collection along with several of Dad’s other cameras).  Dad bought it in Germany when he was in the service.  Some of you will understand that learning on this camera proposed a few issues but others will have no clue as to what it even is.

Voigtländer Vito Automatic

Bob Anderson circa 1956 - Frankfurt,
Germany

Some may even wonder where the “card” goes.  This is a very manual, small compact film camera with an amazing kind of shutter (I will discuss shutters in a post to come later) and a unique metering system invented by Voigtländer that never really caught on ( I will also cover metering in a post to come).   

This want to “do what Dad does” developed (no pun intended) into the love of imaging I have today. I am proud of my skill and have it validated most times when I show my work.  I have photographed many things, people, events etc. in my struggle to “do what I love” but never really achieving the ongoing every day kind of business I had hoped. 

 

   


 “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

- Polonius to Laertes, Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3 by William Shakespeare

This is frustrating but I also know myself pretty well and realize I don’t have the drive and the smarts to pursue it the way it needs to be pursued.  Hell, I don’t even blog the way I should.  What a cop out, I know.  My best advice to young people, I know is, “Do great things”.  I mean they should not let conventional thinking get in their way in choosing a career or life’s passion.  I had so many “blocks” on my brain when I was younger and wish to let folks know that there are no rules when it comes to your development and pursuing what you want out of life.  Regrets benefit NO ONE!!   

Is There A Point To This

I have also found that people like to read short blogs (I do too).  So, yes the point.  Just one of the many thoughts I have had, or maybe more of a justification.  I know too many pros that have stopped shooting because the joy has gone out of it and it becomes work.  I don’t want that to happen.  I have too much time, energy and money wrapped up in this for me to stop being interested in it.  Oh and yes even my Dad lost his fascination with photography but he did move on to another science he loves, computers and at the age of 70 some he built the very computer I write this post on!  Very cool.  So there it is more pieces thrown on to the blank page; little pieces as they may be, it’s all life!