Simplifying my photographic life

I’m simplifying my photographic life by stepping away from fixed commitments and making more room for flexible communities, informal meet-ups and the freedom to simply enjoy taking photographs.

Over the past few days, I have been thinking quite a lot about simplifying my life. That includes my relationship with Photography. Not simplifying the photography itself, but simplifying everything that has gradually built up around it. Groups, talks, competitions, challenges, ideas, outings, projects and meeting commitments.

Individually, none of these things is a problem. Most of them are enjoyable and worthwhile. But collectively, they can begin to take up so much space that photography itself starts to feel like something else to fit into the diary.

I don't want to give up photography activities. I want to stop turning every photographic interest into a commitment.

That thought has been bubbling away for a while, but this weekend brought it into sharper focus.

Enjoying the photography, questioning the structure

I went to Bolsover Castle with a few photographers from Dearne Valley Camera Club.

It was wet, rather tiring and not exactly ideal weather, but I really enjoyed the photography. I enjoyed seeing a few old friends. I enjoyed wandering around with a camera and photographing what interested me.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I had a very simple thought: I could do this without the formal camera club being involved.

That probably sounds obvious. What I enjoyed was the photography and the company. I did not particularly need the club structure around it.

A Year of Reflection: Choosing What Fits

That matters because it is also the time of year when my annual membership is due for renewal, and I have been asking myself whether I really want to renew it again.

Last year, I almost left.

Instead, I decided to give it another year, time to reflect.

Looking back now, I have not attended a single regular weekly in-person meeting during that year.

I have joined occasional outings and get-togethers, like Bolsover, and the occasional online meeting/talk, but Wednesday evening meetings simply do not work for me. Most weekdays, I already have other commitments, and I increasingly find fixed evening meetings too restrictive.

So this year, the decision feels much clearer: I will not be renewing my membership.

That does not mean the club was not important

I do not want this to sound like criticism of Dearne Valley Camera Club, because it has been an important part of my photography.

Some of my strongest memories of the club come from the Covid period.

When in-person meetings stopped, we moved online, and I became heavily involved in making that work.

I set up the club's website and online presence, joined the committee, and we created a close little community at a time when everyone was suddenly isolated from normal life.

In some ways, I actually preferred how we made decisions during that period. Rather than discussing something in a room and relying on whoever happened to be there for a show of hands, we could put proposals online, discuss them, run polls and let members vote anonymously and privately.

It often felt more open and democratic.

More importantly, though, we were a tight group of friends. That period meant a lot to me.

But something being valuable in the past does not necessarily mean it still fits the present.

The club has not suddenly become bad. My circumstances, priorities and the way I engage with photography have changed.

When free time stopped being quite so free

One of the biggest changes over the past three years has been something much more fundamental: what I think of as my free time has changed dramatically.

I now have daily caring responsibilities for an elderly relative, seven days a week. That inevitably affects when I can go out, how long I can be away and, just as importantly, how much energy I have left for other things.

It is not simply a case of looking at an empty space in the diary and deciding to put a photography meeting into it.

Much of the day is shaped by caring responsibilities, and most weekday evenings are tied up with that too. Even when there is technically time available, I may not necessarily have the energy to commit to another fixed activity.

Add to that, my own circumstances have changed physically as well. I am not as mobile as I used to be, so getting out and about takes more thought and effort than it once did.

There has also been another, less obvious effect: Spending so much time at home can become quite isolating. At times, it has reminded me slightly of lockdown again. Not in the same circumstances, obviously, but in that strange sense of life becoming centred around home while the outside world continues around you.

The difference now is that I have certain windows when I know I am likely to have a little more freedom.

Friday afternoons are one example, while the person I care for attends her regular group.

Weekends can provide another opportunity when my wife is able to take over some of the caring responsibilities for a few hours. Those periods have become valuable because they give me the opportunity to act spontaneously.

• I might go somewhere with the camera.

• I might meet somebody.

• I might work on something at home.

• Or I might simply use the time to recover.

That makes it much harder to accommodate a fixed weekly meeting at a particular time and place. It also explains why occasional outings, arranged when circumstances allow, continue to appeal to me even though regular club meetings do not.

And, perhaps inevitably, it has pushed me back towards something that worked extremely well during Covid: an online photographic community.

During lockdown, online meetings allowed photography and friendship to continue when we could not physically get together. Now, for very different reasons, I find myself appreciating many of those same advantages again.

• I can join from home.

• I do not have to travel.

• I can participate when my circumstances and energy allow.

• If something is recorded, I can catch up later.

• And I can remain connected with photographers even during periods when getting out is difficult.

In that sense, my move towards online communities is not really a retreat from photography at all.

It is photography adapting to the life I actually have now.

I already have much of what I need

Another reason the decision feels easier is that I am not actually losing the things I used to look for from a camera club:

I already have two main online photography communities that cover much of that ground.

Photoclub247 gives me access to live and recorded camera club talks, competitions, challenges, image sharing, discussion, chat and direct messaging with other members.

• If I can attend something live, I will.

• If I cannot, I can just watch the recording later.

• I can enter a competition when I want to,

• join a challenge if something interests me,

• share images with a wide group of photographers,

• or simply dip into the community when I have time.

The second is The Photography Community on Skool run by my photographer friend Glyn Dewis.

That gives me another place for conversation, advice, guidance, image critique, mini competitions and general photographic discussion.

Between those two communities, I have just about everything I traditionally looked for from a camera club:

• Talks.

• Education.

• Critique.

• Competitions.

• Challenges.

• Image sharing.

• Conversation.

• Community.

The important difference is that I can take part when I am free.

I am not tied to a fixed evening, a particular building or a regular attendance pattern.

That flexibility matters much more to me now than it once did.

Community without machinery

What I definitely do not want to lose, however, is the face-to-face side of photography.

Online communities are useful, but sometimes you simply want to meet a few people, go somewhere with cameras, take some photographs and talk.

Fortunately, I may already have something that can provide exactly that in time. Before I became heavily involved with Dearne Valley, I ran the Barnsley Photography group for a while with help from some friends.

It was never really a formal club.

It was simply a loose group of friends and local photographers who occasionally got together to take photographs or learn something.

• Sometimes an outing was planned.

• Sometimes somebody suggested somewhere to go.

• Sometimes a few of us met up at short notice.

• It was fluid.

• There was no committee.

• No membership.

• No annual programme.

• No obligation to attend.

• No expectation that something had to happen every week or even every month.

Somebody suggested an outing......

• People came if they fancied it.

• Sometimes plenty of people came.

• Sometimes only a few.

• Sometimes nothing happened for a while.

And that was perfectly acceptable.

Looking back, I realise that the strongest part of that group is exactly what I find myself wanting more of now. A close group of people getting together because they want to, not because the calendar says it is club night.

Community without machinery.

There is no reason the Barnsley Photography group cannot return to being exactly that.

If I fancy going somewhere with the camera one weekend, I can simply put a message in the group and ask whether anyone wants to come along.

• If people do, great.

• If they do not, I can still go.

• No administration.

• No obligation.

• No sense that somebody has failed because an event did not happen.

That feels much more compatible with the way I want photography to fit into my life now.

Making room without deciding what fills it

Perhaps the most important part of all this is that I do not actually know what I want to do with the time I do have free. And I think that is the point.

My instinct would normally be to create a project to occupy it.

• A studio project.

• A photography challenge.

• A course.

• A series of blog posts.

• Something.

But perhaps the space itself has value.

I want the freedom to wake up one day and decide what interests me.

• Maybe I will go out with the camera.

• Maybe I will work in the studio.

• Maybe I will experiment with lighting.

• Maybe I will edit some older photographs.

• Maybe I will watch a tutorial and try something new.

• Maybe I will do absolutely nothing photographic at all.

• I do not need to decide in advance.

• That freedom is what I am trying to create.

Photography can attract so much activity that surprisingly little time is left to simply play with a camera.

• Meetings.

• Competitions.

• Websites.

• Social media.

• Talks.

• Challenges.

• Groups.

• Committees.

• Projects.

All of them can be worthwhile. But they can also create a strange situation where you spend an enormous amount of time doing photography-related things without actually making many good photographs, - the ones you have a strong emotional connection with.

For a while, I would like to turn that around.

Rather than abandoning community, I'm choosing looser forms of participation and leaving more room for spontaneous and solo photography.

Leaving some space empty

So I think this is less about leaving a camera club and more about changing my relationship with photography.

Dearne Valley Camera Club was important to me, particularly during a period when it gave me friendship, purpose and a close photographic community.

But I no longer need the formal structure in the same way.

Photoclub247 and Glyn's Skool community already give me the education, conversation, critique and shared activity I want, without requiring me to be somewhere at a particular time.

The Barnsley Photography group can give me the occasional face-to-face connection I still value, without becoming another organisation to manage.

And the rest?

• I am deliberately leaving undecided.

• I hope that having fewer fixed commitments will make photography feel more enjoyable again.

• I want to be able to miss something without feeling guilty.

• I want an empty weekend to feel like freedom rather than a gap that needs filling.

• I want to be able to play, experiment and learn without everything having to become part of a programme.

Perhaps that is what simplifying my photographic life really means.

Not doing less photography. Just giving photography more room to breathe.