Photography is a Terrible Hobby

A Lyrical Poem

Photography is a terrible hobby. Honestly, don’t do it.

Do something fun, like writing or painting. Yoga. Walking on hot coals.

It’s so bad.

Way back we suffered through hours and days in a darkroom, fingers puckered from smelly chemicals, because seeing an image emerge under red light felt miraculous. Eventually we wised up and replaced all that magic and physical science with circuit boards, so now we spend endless hours seated at a desk. I’m sitting right now, in fact.¹

It’s next to impossible to do photography in 2025 without a computer. What a pain. They’re expensive and confusing and changing all the time. And expensive. And confusing. Did I say that? Ope! Time for an upgrade.

Not all computers are preposterously priced, of course. Just the computers photographers need. Everybody else can get by with any old box with a keyboard. Right now I’m writing — a much better hobby, by the way — on a used laptop with Hello Kitty stickers on it that I got for a couple hundred bucks on eBay because it has Hello Kitty stickers on it. But, like, this one computer is perfect for this task. And if I got a brand new top of the line laptop today? It would make zero impact on my writing. I’d open the same word processor and find the same 26 keys in their very same QWERTY place.

Hell, I technically don’t even need a computer to be a writer. Stephen King uses a typewriter. I could get one of those at a flea market. Joyce Carol Oates writes longhand on pads of paper. Paper sounds fun. I remember when photography used paper. The good ol’ days.

Paper and pencil. That’s the life!

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Annoying as they are, computers are the least of the issue.

Stupid photography. Along with your computer becoming outdated every 18 months, you need a camera that costs as much as a used car. In some cases more.

Oh, did you want lenses with that? No worries. You can get an awful lens that looks like a potato for $400 or this nice one that you’ll scuff with its own lens cap within a week for $2,800. Heaven forbid you’d like more than one.

Don’t forget a shoulder bag in which to keep your thousands of dollars worth of gear. Something simple, classic canvas. They’re just $800 or so. I know, I’m cherry picking. But seriously, why are these so expensive?

Speaking of expensive, are you thinking of shooting film? Don’t. It’s like photography on hard mode, and every frame costs at least a couple bucks.

So now you’re $10,000 into your new terrible hobby, while I’m over here writing bangers like this on my eBay laptop for the next decade at an amortized cost less than my daily coffee.

The expense of photography is not nearly my only complaint.

Photography is a terrible hobby because everything’s heavy. My camera’s heavy. My lenses are heavy. My lights, stands, apple boxes… Everything is just too damn heavy.

Unless it’s light as a feather, like an umbrella or reflector, rendering it completely unusable outdoors.

And there’s so much of this stuff. Okay, fine, you can get away with one camera and one lens. But also one SD card and one card reader and one USB-D cable or whatever the hell it’s gonna be this time next year and one additional battery and one filter and one camera strap and one computer and one shoulder bag and one software subscription.

Oh, the room you’re looking at your pictures in is too bright? Yeah, all your pictures are gonna be too bright. Just move your desk to the basement, where there are no windows, because who doesn’t love a dark windowless room.

You are calibrating your monitor, aren’t you? That old calibrator doesn’t work any more, though, so you’d better get a new one.²

You know how if your hobby is basketball you buy a basketball and a hoop and then you go out in the alley and play basketball for the next decade? Or how you maybe don’t even have to buy anything but just go to the park and join someone else’s game? Photography doesn’t work that way. You can’t go find a photographer on the street and use their camera with them.

While you can go out in the backyard and take pictures, it’s gonna get old pretty fast. So you’ll need to travel. A lot. Across town, across the state, cross-country… Anywhere other than where you conveniently are now.

Once you get there, don’t stay up too late because you’re gonna need to get up early. Think of whatever time the sun is gonna rise and get up an hour before that. Maybe two. Go to bed right now.

Oh, that reminds me: you also need a flashlight to do photography because it’s gonna be dark when you get there. And probably hiking boots. A satellite phone. First aid kit. Snakebite antivenom.

Because photography is terrible, even if you manage to do all of the above and get up at 4am to shoot the sunrise, soon enough you’ll have to stop. Because by 9am the light is useless. Might as well go take a nap until dinner. Afterward, if you’re lucky, you can do your hobby again for an hour before bedtime.

Painting and drawing would be a much better hobby. You’d only need an easel, a couple of canvases (or just a pad of paper or a scrap of wood!), some paint and brushes (or, you know, JUST A PENCIL).

I’m in the wrong hobby.

Photography is a terrible hobby because even if you do manage to do something worth showing after having invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours, the first thing the viewer is gonna ask you is what kind of camera you have.

Nobody has ever asked writer me what kind of computer I use.³

Photography is a terrible hobby because when you do manage to find someone willing to engage with you and your work, they’re just gonna tell you all the ways they would have done it better. Because everyone’s a photographer. They can’t show you their good pictures though because they don’t go to school here. They live in Canada.

Do you know what a potter needs to do their hobby? Mud. LITERALLY MUD. And when you’re done you can drink out of it.

Photography is a terrible hobby because you need permission. You need permission to stand where the good things to look at are, and you need permission to point your camera at anybody. They think you do, anyway. Don’t forget to allocate some nonzero portion of your photography time to dealing with people who want to hassle you for no good reason. Try not to get punched in the face.

You know who doesn’t get harassed for doing their hobby in the park? Poets.

Photography is a terrible hobby because if you don’t post it to social media, are you even doing it? You know how supportive and helpful social media people are. A veritable delight of refreshingly helpful information.

Photography is terrible because if you do manage to conquer the social media thing, soon enough you’ll find yourself blindly following the trends (Skibidi!) and “teaching to the test” so your work ends up looking like everyone else’s. Before you know it you’re making TikToks about the 35 must-have camera holsters and calling yourself a content creator. Like all the best artists do. Pretty soon you’re standing in a queue on a beach in Thailand, waiting for all the other influencers to finish their selfies and get out of your way.

Photography is a terrible hobby because AI is gonna make it go extinct. Then our cameras will really be worthless. And you won’t have a reason to travel to Thailand. Well, except that other thing.

Photography is a terrible hobby because if you do manage to make something special, some real art, it will be called art* with an asterisk and the best examples in the world will sell for a fraction of the price of “real” art. Which, did I mention, requires only paint and literally any surface? You can even use spraypaint.

Photography is a terrible hobby because if you do it really well, some establishment-sanctioned “artist” can come along and unironically take a picture of your picture and sell it for three million bucks. Don’t worry, though, you’ll get something out of the deal: a stomach ulcer and years of bitter resentment.

Photography is a terrible hobby because if it’s raining you’ll ruin your equipment so better just stay in bed.

Photography is a terrible hobby, so you should turn it into your job instead. Everybody will tell you that — but they will offer no advice for how it’s done. You’ll call it a side hustle and do it on the weekends for cash, but not enough cash to do anything meaningful with.⁴ Soon enough, now that you’ve joined the rapidly expanding ranks of paid photographers, you won’t take pictures of things you like any more. You’ll just take pictures of what other people will give you money for. It’s really great if what you got into photography for was doing things you don’t want to do.

Photography is a terrible hobby because, despite all this, you’re gonna love it. Against your better judgement, whether or not you want to, you’re going to love it and you won’t be able to understand why. It’s a curse.

Photography is a terrible hobby. You should be a jogger instead. Or a knitter. Or a woodworker.

Well, wait. I guess that one’s expensive too, all those saws and machines and stuff. And it takes up a lot of space to make a shop. And it’s loud and there’s sawdust everywhere, and you can get your fingers cut off if you do it wrong.

Okay so photography is a terrible hobby, but it’s better than woodworking. That’s it.

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1. I’m actually not. But I promise I’m a reliable narrator.

2. I’m looking at you X-Rite, or should I say Calibrite.

3. It’s a laptop from eBay. It has little Hello Kitty stickers on it. Pay attention.

4. Just enough to tank the photo economy.