- cross-posted to:
- autism@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- autism@lemmy.world
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I struggle with this a lot. I go hard with literally everything.
I’m an enthusiast amateur photographer with nice DSLR and a few mirrorless cameras. And I shoot a lot on automatic. It’s fine. Semiauto and manual is usually only needed if you have specific ideas about exposure.
Also you can fix soooo many mistakes in the post. When people tell me their cellphone photos look naff, I tell them to just try levels / curves / white balance tools, and those are in every photo editor. Will help a lot.
I feel this with reading.
Personally I’ve never understood the flex around how many books someone has read in a year. I mean if you are a fast reader/comprehend-er then you be you. Yet I feel that most people are just reading book after book so they can get to some arbitrary number by the end of an arbitrary time frame.
But, hey if setting a goal of reading x number of books in y amount of time makes you happy - fucking go for it.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
right. I feel like the world is desperate to pretend we aren’t standing on the shoulders of giants. who wants to reinvent everything, every time. use the paths already there and find shortcuts along the way, then mark them and leave them for the next traveller.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly
Related to what you said, but not necessarily this post: I was so damn frustrated with my neighborhood community the other day. We had a vote on whether or not to repurpose a huge grass field that takes up a ton of water and sees very little use. We’re wasting a ton of money (and water) watering this pristine empty field.
The main argument for keeping the field was “we waste water in other areas of the community as well. The common-area sprinklers were on when it rained the other day. We need to address all waste before making a decision about this empty field.”
There are a lot of people that don’t realize you can make incremental progress towards a goal.
God this is so true. I teach compuster science, and I always make a point in one lecture to show the students how many tabs full of basic questions I have to open when grading their assignments. Nobody can memorize all of this, and it’s so important to shake off that feeling of not being good enough just because you have to look something up.
Career software developer - Years and years ago I stopped reading programming manuals and trying to remember the syntax of languages. I just google the same basic things over and over, and often paste & edit example code.
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.
I feel so seen!
I do not want my customer’s money deciding how I do my favorite things! That’s for ME.
I’ve got extremely good dexterity and my favorite hobby is flow arts which is a visual spectacle. This results in lots of attention and I’m always hearing that I gotta make money with it.
Yep, I do have a business out of my hobbies, but I definitely have lost some fire for a couple of those hobbies I now depend on for income.
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
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.
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.
I’m trying my best but it’s so goddamn hard. I went to two trade shows past weekend and actually talked to someone new (well, the same person twice, but still). But literally every other person there had a much more extensive collection and knowledge than I do, after 5 years of obessessing over the subject.
I will always just be a very lightly informed amateur without real skills in any field.
People struggle to put themselves out there as amateurs because of this feeling, but it’s totally fine. Most hobbies wouldn’t exist without a range of enthusiasts and skills.
Like, I’ve been pretty into chess for the past couple of years, but I’m still barely “intermediate” at best. Browsing forums and stuff, it seems like everyone is a top 1% player, but that’s mathematically impossible.
Amateur’s etymology is “amator” meaning lover. It’s ok to be an amateur. It shows you’re enjoying yourself and interested. You don’t need to be the best, just do what is fun to you. Life’s too short to be a jack of all trades professional.
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.
You’re totally right, but I would also say this is a great point for understanding/ learning photo editing software. More as a tool in your pocket so that when you don’t get a nice photo, you know what is or isn’t fixable.
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.
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.
Reminds me of the American mindset of always making something FIRST, THE BEST or THE BIGGEST! Nothing can ever just be nice or comfortable. It can never be “Know the thing next town? Yea we did that here!”, it’s always “Know the thing next town? Yea we wiped the floor with em! Come to us!”. Needless to say, my visit to the states was quite tiring after a while.
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.
