My photography has become constrained more and more.  Going through the Covid pandemic stopped me from mixing with other people and trying additional forms of photography.  The intervening three years since the start of those restrictions have seen a slight but continuing degradation in my physical abilities as I continue to age.  At the same time, inflation and loss of buying power occurred and raised the cost of most new cameras beyond reasonable limits for my retirement income.  

During this time, I tried to find new reasons for searching out ideas for my photography.  As I kept trying to come up with new ideas that fit within my new limitations, I realized that now is the time to seriously start paring back with photography as a hobby since it is becoming untenable.

I replaced my Pentax gear with the Olympus E-M5 III and a few lenses.  I will keep the Olympus TG-6 camera and sell the Fujifilm gear.

Relative to my intentions or purpose or reasons for continuing my photography hobby, I have realized that my previous reasons for pursuing photography have not changed, and anything more grandiose is not needed, or warranted, or maybe possible.

Okakura Tenshin points out that this focusing on the meaning of our lives tends to make us too heavy and self-important, “How can one be so serious with the world when the world itself is so ridiculous?”

As a hobby, I like to utilize photography as a way to entertain myself as I attempt to make images of common everyday scenes and play with how to process them.  I hope to continue that as long as I can with my two Olympus cameras.  That is my intention for continuing … entertain myself as I play with photography.

The larger unknowns are whether, or how, to continue with my blog, and what to photograph.  I will keep it going as long as I can and just let it flow naturally as I find images to display or thoughts to express.  If nothing, then nothing is what you will see.