Last weekend I went down to Williamstown with my good friend Alick. Aside from being great company, Alick had also bought a new camera and we were both keen to spend a day somewhere new together and spend some time capturing some good shots.
As we settled into Markov Place for our obligatory after drinks, we began to talk about how nice it is to have a project to spend time working on. It occurred to us that it seems no longer acceptable to spend time doing things that you are not an expert at. For two guys to have fun spending a day taking photos for no reason other than enjoyment seems a foreign concept these days, where instead everybody needs to be doing something for a reason. Oddly, we were stuck briefly trying to give a name to what we were doing, until we remembered that now frowned upon word: Hobby.
It seems hobbies are something our grandparents had, but not our generation. Now people have “side projects” or something. Yet a hobby is exactly the right word. Both Alick and I have challenging jobs that we love, but want something else totally different from work to keep us entertained. We’re not really doing it for any other reason, and don’t necessarily have any goals. It’s quite relaxing.
It also strikes me as strange that being an amateur is so frowned upon in this day of collaborative media. In the not so distant future it will be the non-professional who is responsible for more and more content. That is probably a post for another day and maybe another blog though.
