I struggle with this a lot. I go hard with literally everything.
The internet has made serial hobbying so much easier. “Back in the day”, it was much harder to expand your skills, so you learned a few things really well.
Now there’s more opportunity to find something that fits your style, so half-assing is really just the trial period before you move on.
As a “still a serial hobbiest”, It’s great.
Growing up in the 90s, there were so many hobbies that were unobtainable.
Like, I was a kid and didn’t have anybody to teach me about trees. So they recommend you go to a library and get some books on trees. But the books are either at a college level, or something extremely basic. And your support was only as helpful as the librarian. So they knew zilch about the topic, you’re fucked.
Today, you wanna know about trees? Visit a wiki. Watch YouTube videos. Ask AI. Go to the library with actual resources to get the right books or audio books.
Huge opportunity and a wealth of information.
Wait, there is more than one type of braid? i thought i was hot shit for knowing how to braid a girls hair.
I think some people are misunderstanding what this is trying to say. It’s not saying that you should always take the easy route with your hobbies. It is not saying that you shouldn’t learn the “right” way to do your hobby.
It’s saying that it’s just a fucking hobby. It’s purpose is to be enjoyed not mastered. Do it the hard way when you’re feeling it. But don’t force yourself to struggle because someone on the Internet said that this way is how you learn the most efficiently or get the best results.
It’s saying that it’s just a fucking hobby. It’s purpose is to be enjoyed not mastered.
Yeah, too many people preemptively gatekeep themselves: you’re not a real (hobbyist) unless you master (narrow part of the hobby), so you’re not allowed to take up that hobby until you’re ready to commit to that boring/tedious/difficult part.
I play chess and I don’t know the names of openings (and still have a lot of trouble with following notation). Who gives a shit, I’m not going to win tournaments. But I still have fun with it, occasionally play strangers in the park, and have been having fun teaching my kids how to play.
I half-ass my fitness and workout routine. Sometimes I go months in between gym sessions, and sometimes I go 6x a week for months, break some PRs, and then go on living my life. Sometimes I run 500 miles in a year, sometimes I run 10. Whatever. Life gets busy, and my own preferences shift between whether I want to do cardio, weights, sports, yoga, metcon/CrossFit style classes, or just sit on my ass and get weak and fat for a year. I’m in my 40’s, so I’ve been all over the place on all of these things.
I can watch a TV show without needing to start from the pilot and watching every episode that came out. I can watch a movie without trying to understand every reference to everything else in the same cinematic universe. I enjoy watching basketball and football even when I can’t name all the players, much less their whole career histories.
And after all that, a funny thing starts to happen. You find that you actually are pretty good at certain things compared to the public, even though you didn’t wholeheartedly devote all your effort to that thing.
I like being a dilettante. It’s awesome and I’d recommend this lifestyle to anyone. The best way to enjoy a hobby is to be unburdened by expectations.
As someone who occasionally does professional photography/ filming, the auto setting on your camera is fine if you’re just snapping pics. Where you’d want manual is if you were taking a larger series of photos and wanted to apply the same effects/ processing to the batch.
As someone who never did photography professionally but as a hobby, I learned the manual settings when automatic failed to take a good photo.
the automatic setting might give you 1/30 of a second when photographing fast moving animals or 1/500 with aperture 2.8 when photographing landscapes, neither of which will give you good photos :/
Aperture, shutter speed and ISO aren’t very hard to understand and applying them correctly will give you a lot better photos.
There is also semiautomatic modes which allow you to specify part of that triad without needing to exactly know how best to adjust all three.
I figure it depends mostly how much time you have to take your shot. Though im not sure how fast someone can get with manual mode with practice.
Yes, semiautomatic are what you should use most of the time really.
Agreed! I was surprised how easy it is to learn the basics, it really does help if you want to get better photos.
Fwiw, the book Understanding Exposure was a nice entrance to photography basics for me… Really helped nail down what aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are for…
Hey kids, do you like violence?
Wanna see me stick nine inch nails through each one of my eyelids?
Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did?
Try 'cid and get fucked up worse than my life is?
Also, speaking of tracing stuff. Your phone is basically a light table! You can pull up the picture on your phone and trace it. Use a light touch so you don’t accidentally zoom. Computer monitors work with bigger stuff. I did that with this pigeon meme, and I’m pretty thrilled with it.
Random picture from a non-native: what does “tracing a picture” mean in this context?
I couldn’t find the meaning
It means putting a blank piece of paper over the picture and using the picture to help you draw on the sheet. So instead of free-drawing a pigeon you are copying/tracing it.
Ahhh, thanks! It’s important not to scratch the screen, though - paper makes a poor screen protection :D
Most phone screens today are very hard. A graphite pencil will not do permanent damage. Avoid using metal tip pens and you should be fine.
me: does a thing because I like it and I get kinda not shit at it.
Everyone else: HaVe You cOnSIDErEd DoinG ThaT PRofEssIONaLLY? YOu cOULd mAKE so MUCH MOneY.!1!
me: fuck off. I have a job. I do this for me.
everyone else: Do What yOU LOve anD You’lL neVER worK A dAy IN Your life.!
me: turn your hobby into your job and you don’t have a hobby anymore. There’s no faster way to hate your passion than to monetize it.
That’s why it’s funny that the bicycling community talks of “dentists” with all their gear. The people best equipped to really pursue that hobby wholeheartedly are the people who make a shitload of money doing something completely different.
I lost interest in photography for several years because of this. And because I’m a slow learner, I did the same thing with woodworking An extra few bucks doing a random thing or two is nice, but the side hustle gig mentality is toxic
Nope. Educate yourself with fact-based knowledge. It’ll pay off in the long run if you know what you’re actually talking about.
What if your hobby is reading tarot cards?
Fact based knowledge sounds good but could mean anything.
I’m a 38 yo straight dude with a potty mouth and a bad attitude. I love sewing. Idky and I’m terrible at it but it gives me the good feels so I practice as much as my brain will allow.
Yeah well you’re also part of what we fight the patriarchy for. It’s sad that people don’t thing someone like you might enjoy sewing
Also a dude, sewing is fucking great! Thinking back, I’m pretty sure I learned to sew long before I learned any other forms of making, childhood me made lots of felt toys and crafts for friends and family because materials were cheap, accessable, and pretty easy to work with. I love being able to take a pile of fabric and make it into something functional, or at the very least mend my clothes to get more life out of them.
I made a kick ass cover for my smoker for pennies on the dollar and a higher quality custom fit than anything I could ever purchase. All my favorite cloths look far newer than they actually are, as well. I recently learned how to properly do Zippers and now all my winter cloths have brand new hardware saving me god knows how much by not needing to buy new cloths.
Anyone who tells you to manually set everything in photography is silly. I took a photography class and made sure to thoroughly read a professional photographer’s breakdown of my camera and how to operate it.
The only reason I’ve seen suggested why you should use manual mode is if you want a very specific shot that the automatic settings won’t allow you to get. You know, like everything else. Automatic modes (i.e. aperture modes mainly) are there for a reason and while it’s good to know how to manually set your parameters and read the light meter, you realistically don’t want to be fiddling with your camera while whatever subject you want to photograph is potentially changing (for portrait or still shots its not as bad, but if you need to do any form of quick shooting you’re only hampering yourself). Do I still use manual mode sometimes? Of course! I was taught how to use it and when I need it it is extremely helpful. But I typically only need it for night photography or if I want a specific effect (which can often be achieved with shutter mode but I never really use that).
I use manual when I’m shooting RAW and want to get better control for shutter speed. I like to run under exposed settings between one or two steps since I can just up the exposure just fine in post but I can get much more consistent focus in less than ideal lighting.
I can’t speak for newer cameras, though. As the last camera that I used is released on 2012. The auto settings on that camera (Pentax K5-II) is atrocious.
That’s fair. My camera (Nikon D300) is from 2007 but it functions wonderfully and the auto settings are usually very good, with me only having to adjust the exposure or white balance occasionally.
This is the end result of no one actually understanding the notion of “practice makes perfect” and probably some other shit that kids are internalizing these days that I am not privy to.
It’s also really helpful to read again.
No one is perfect, people just get good at stuff by doing it a lot (and can also get worse if they stop doing it). So many friends of mine are always talking about doing creative stuff and how hard it is and yet they never actually just take the first step to try anything.
I’ve been playing guitar for 25 years and I kinda suck. I’ve forgotten everything I know about music theory, I don’t know any songs and my fingers just don’t move that fast. But I enjoy coming home and making some noise for 15-20 minutes. I just move my hands around and make a lot of bad sounds until I start making a good sounding riff then I’m done.
That’s how I used to play guitar, too. I got a cheapo sound pedal with a bunch of effects and premade back beats. Try to play some songs that I know. Sound bad. Keep doing it until I get bored or it sounds kinda cool once. That’s enough for the week.
Am I ever gonna be anywhere close to decent? Nope. Do I care? Nope.
Every time I share my photography with my parents, they suggest new ways I should be selling it. Just let me enjoy the pretty birds, dad
At least your parents are supportive.
Every time id share some creation of mine in my late teens and early 20s with my mom, I’d just hear a random smattering of reports on shit her “friends” (vague acquaintances) had done with no acknowledgement of what I had created.
At least the skills I picked up over the years landed me a job where the things I make are objectively crap and everyone who I don’t really care about sings my praises.
That’s also a nice compliment though, I.e. it’s so good they think people would pay for it!
I have a job where the consequences of making a mistake are Significant.
I have a crafting hobby because I can suck at it with no consequences at all, and sometimes I make something cool.
