Pavel
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I almost wish I had not stumbled upon this thread. It has made me think too much. Normally, I answer a thread off the cuff, with the first response that comes to mind, of course with the occasional regret. This is, in 15 years of being on this forum, perhaps the tenth reply that I've actually thought about a while before posting. It somehow has a lot of weight with me.
I wish it has not been hijacked with the "comment/don't comment" and "how to comment, let me count the ways" emphasis. I find that to be besides the point, though I will add to it by saying that I find it confounding that someone could be that sensitive to be worried about someone else viewpoint one way or another. In a way I feel that if you need to be guided that much that perhaps one is missing one's own vision and is not likely to find it until it somehow finds you, where you don't much care what offense may be in someones reply. I find it interesting to hear someones criticism of any work I may put out there, but in truth it would not ever cause me offense because, well, I don't value others ideas over my own innate feelings very much. I guess that makes me a bad participant in some circles.
But aside from that one aside, this idea, which I believe to be accurate that people are sort of drifting away makes me pretty sad, in part because I mostly have. I don't want to, but somehow the day where I got excited about coming here, the best forum always (and still) imho out on the big wide internet, reflects how I've lost my passion for something once important to me. I wonder why?
I use to come. regularly and take all discussions seriously and have such a good time in doings so. Digital life seemed so fresh and immediate back then, to me. It don'ts now, no matter how much I try to make it so. I don't come here very much, and when I do it's more that I'm trying to get into the spirit of something, where in the back of my mind I know that it's a bit false.
There are several reasons for this, but I can't decide which are the most significant and if it's just a quick thing that will pass or a terminal sort of ennui. Is it because digital photography has become so easy? Shooting fish in a barrel is only fun awhile. Or is it that the ego wants something "special" and with the wealth of amazing images out there, there is never anything special for more than a two second click through? Years ago I saw an add for Nikon, featuring Jared Cushner, in which it said something like "let Nikon do it". That is supposed to be a draw? That stuck with me, because it seemed repulsive that the machine now does such a chunk of what our vanity tells us is our unique, creative vision. No matter how I slice the arguments, I can't buy into it too much that I am still the "artist" creating an image. Nikon as far as I view it "does it for me", and it leaves something lacking as Nikon does it better and better each passing new model iteration. I have more technology than I could ever want, and it seems to leave me flat. Does anyone else feel that way, even if only once in a while?
I left for a while in great part because in 2006 I started back in film and that took off in 2008 and really took off in 2010 for me when I built a Darkroom. Photography, pure photography, as I considered it to be, as opposed to "digital image manipulation" at that time, kicked my butt a lot, but somehow I enjoyed every minute of it and digital started to get boring for me. But products started to disappear, and I though I saw the end on the film wall coming and so when my house and darkroom flooded in 2014 I did not re-build the darkroom. At that point I re-imeresed myself in digital, and all was good for a short time. But then the same personal feeling of a lack of any worth to the hobby started to come around again. For a while new gear, always a sure fire way of keeping interest, worked to keep me going but over the last few years even that magic bullet lost its magic. So for a good long while I have held onto the equipment, much too much of it, in hopes that my interest will flood back. I didn't want to be re-buying when the bug hit again. It has not worked, however, and now the gear isn't worth selling, the new stuff does not entice me much and methinks I may be near done.
There are such great photographers on this forum, and they take such great photographs - billions of them, all so perfect. Not just perfect but too perfect. Yeah, that's the other thing. The trend seems to have taken current photography to the loud, bold, colorful styles that ... well, look like they were shot on some other planet with three suns, so that the shadows always show some of that vaunted texture and the colors pop more than a teenagers pimples. I'm equal parts impressed with this unreal perfection that seems to scream wild colors at me, and equally repulsed. Actually the repulsion is greater than the admiration.
So I come here, trying to revive my hobby, but I find digital photography too much the work of the technology and I find it banal to a great extent. I hate saying that. I hate that, for me, it's true.
And then there is how (imho) digital photography costs have gone insane. lenses are priced like Veblen goods for fetishists. I used to think it was insane when I moved to the states (the south eastern backwoods part  ) and I saw how bass fishing worked. One gets a 80 thousand dollar investment in gear, between boat, motor, rods, reels and lures and goes with sonar to hunt some hapless fish with a brain the size of a pea, mounts it and considers it to be a life affirming grace. I saw that sort of "hobby" as a freak show. I know that I'm going going to get pretty unpopular really quick here, but photography now is a lot like bass fishing. a larger than life, grotesque sort of fetish hobby - and that's before I start to think that money I've spent could have been put to some sort of more humane purpose.
Hhmmm. I better stop now. . I've been fighting the itch to close my Fredmiranda account for almost three years and thus close the door on my past, and force a move to other things. But I think myself out of it. I better do that now, quick. I don't want to contribute to the exodus, and I'm sure it will be clear to me any day now, how photography is actually really important in the whole scheme of things. Yes, that's it!
And besides, I have to find a replacement. Bass fishing is out. I've recently taken up painting though, and I'm amazed how bad I am. Nikon's doing nothing to fix my poor colors on the canvas, nor my poor perspective. Why is it so much fun though? My painting sure do suck. And does any of this make any sense at all? I wish I had not bumped into this thread.
Perhaps I need that new Nikon Z6? Can I live without a second card slot, however, is the big question. Anyone know?
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