"IWTH" (remember it as "with" with the first two letters swapped) stands for an "I-want-to hobby." These are things you absolutely don't have to do, but you do because, well, you want to.
Xander on the wall
Of course, most hobbies are IWTHs to some extent. My nephew makes knives. My son climbs artificial cliffs at indoor climbing gyms. Another friend is a semi-professional stained-glass artist. If you don't have a market for knives or stained glass and don't make any money doing what you do, there's no reason to do any of those things...except the best reason, which is that you want to. Recently, as you know, I looked into shaving as a hobby, and being your own barber with old-fashioned razors is definitely something you only do if you want to. Every pharmacy in the land carries a selection of electric razors and multi-blade cartridge razors and foam shaving cream in cans. That's what everyone uses. It's the standard. Being your own barber, using shaving soaps and restored mid-century razors, owning many samples of everything and using them in rotation, and all that? Well, it's pointless, but why not? If you want to do it, there's the reason. It's its own reason.
Photography is an IWTH only for some people. It also falls under the category of CBAPs..."could be a profession." (I'm just having fun with these initialisms here, by the way. Don't take it too seriously.)
There are all kinds of specialties you can get into as a photography professional. I'll name just a few—real people, who I know or know of—to give you an idea of the range: an aerial photographer who pilots his own small plane; a "stringer" (independent photojournalist who gets irregular assignments from publications); wedding, food, fashion, boudoir, headshot and real-estate photographer / architectural photographers; and I know of photographers who specialize in each of the following, maybe in among a few other things: racehorse conformation portraits; portraits of sailboats for the boats' owners; and motorcycle racing. That's just the tip of the iceberg. All the way down to people who have YouTube channels or, um, write blogs. There are also degrees of professionalism: they can go all the way from very successful businesses with very high income ceilings—photographers like Annie Leibovitz (a name I always misspell, so that's probably misspelled) and Morgan Norman have net worths in the millions—to people who only occasionally do a job for pay or sell a few prints on weekends at community art fairs.
But for most of us, photography is an IWTH. And in that case, you do whatever you want to, for whatever reason you choose.
Some hobbies fall into the category of "you have to do it anyway." Shaving, cooking, driving, your clothing, and so forth. You can make a hobby of any of those things—but for most people they're not hobbies, just chores or necessities. Some hobbies revolve around a nominal "vice," as is the case with wine, whiskey, or cigar aficionados. I knew a guy once who worked at a garden center whose hobby, with his wife, was to eat one meal every month at a very fine restaurant. They would save up for it and drive as far as 200 miles away for the monthly gourmet treat. Many hobbies revolve around some kind of gear connoisseurship: watches or laundry machines (really) or fly-fishing can be that way. Some photographers are primarily devoted to a single marque or brand of camera, for example. And we all know which one. :-) Some hobbies are pastimes: movie-watching, reading, or video-gaming. I know a family that does large, difficult jigsaw puzzles together at their summer cottage, a pastime hobby that's traditional for them. The puzzle stays on a table on the porch for days or even weeks and people work on it when they feel like it, individually or together. When it's finished they admire it for a few days then start on another. They really enjoy it.
Many hobbies center on collecting. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen was Mark Noyzewski's basement, fastidiously and beautifully organized but absolutely stuffed to the rafters with comic books, toys, posters, and pop-culture merch, with a special interest in everything Star Wars. (By the way, the difference between a hoarder and a collector is organization. If it's organized, you're not a hoarder.) Another was the apartment of Arnold Crane, a retired divorce attorney and lifelong photographer who collected many thousands of art objects of all sorts and whose spacious high-rise apartment on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago was like an intimate museum. (I edited Arnold's book for him.) There are several ways that a photography interest can be centered around collecting: you can collect cameras, prints, or books, to name just three. And come to think of it, isn't the activity of photographing itself sort of a form of collecting? You go about the world taking pictures of things, every now and then getting something you like, and those go into your "selects" in some way—added to the "collection." When I first met Ctein, he was a dye transfer printer, and his principle of collecting, in this sense, was that when he got a good shot he liked, he would make a 16x20" dye of it—a very involved process, as you might know—and it would go into the master portfolio. After half a lifetime of hard work he wasn't yet up to 100 prints at that time. That's not exactly "collecting," but it's not far off.
Status
I would guess that hobbies tend to have more status the more rare or difficult or risky they are, and the fewer the number of people who have achieved some sort of mastery in that area. Chainsaw sculptors, sailboat racers, polyglots (people who speak many languages—are any of you out there?), and sleight-of-hand magicians are examples of things that few people master. But scrapbooking, walking or hiking, currency collecting, and board games are hobbies that have a low bar to participation, at least at the entry or beginning level.
Maybe what's been happening to photography in the last two decades or so is that it's become something that far more people can do satisfactorily without specialized knowledge or experience, so its status is starting to decline. You no longer need years of experience and involved knowledge to take a beautiful picture or even make a beautiful print (just pay for it). I've said before that saying "I'm a photographer" these days is inching ever closer to saying, "oh, I'm a person who eats meals," or "I'm a person who breathes air." Who isn't a photographer these days? But when you get into the weeds, of course, and get obsessive about it, it's still a great IWTH.
Hobbies can be purpose-driven. Maybe your purpose is to find good side-hustles and make extra money. Maybe you love beer and want to learn to make craft beers to participate in tastings or just give as gifts to your friends. Maybe you have a life-list of something—states you've visited, bands you've seen live, birds you've "watched." Photography can be great for purpose-driven goals: you can collect destinations, for instance, photographing in Iceland and Prague and Death Valley, in which case you organize your travel experiences around it; or you can use it for meeting people; or for the documentation of an intersecting interest, as train photographers do. Jim Lager, whose purpose was to be a Leica expert, decided early on to collect pictures of Leicas rather than Leicas! As you know if you know his wonderful three-volume set of books. Life lists are possible in the photography hobby too...I've always thought it would be interesting to see how many sites of famous photographs you could visit! The Flatiron building, the Mission Church of Rancho de Taos, and Canyon de Chelly might be my first stops. Jamie Livingston took an SX-70 photo every day for decades; a British photographer I know of had it as his goal to take at least one decent photo with as many vintage cameras as he could.
There is one last category of hobby that few people think about: those that are the most deeply satisfying. Yoga, gardening, baking, and ballroom dancing are all hobbies that tend to rank high on the satisfaction index (I read an analysis once that claimed gardening is No. 1, although you couldn't prove it by me). One way to think of the central challenge of being a photography enthusiast in the IWTH category is figuring out how to make it as satisfying as possible for you personally.
All good
I've been working for photography enthusiasts since 1984, when I got a senior internship as a teaching assistant at Northern Virginia Community College. I'd already become the unofficial darkroom manager at the art school I attended. My loyalty throughout my career has been to photographers. Their interests come first. That was certainly true when I was a magazine editor—I conceived of my loyalty being not first and foremost to my employer, the publisher, nor to the manufacturers who advertised in the magazine, but to the readers first of all. It was the proper, principled structure of the job, just as a lawyer is supposed to give her all to the interests of her client within the boundaries of the rules. "The business side" and "the editorial side" were supposed to be separate but equal. So I butted heads with the advertising director a lot. So my attitude has always been that however anyone wants to find interest and satisfaction in photography is fine with me as long as they're not hurting anybody. The range is truly breathtaking, so much so that it seems almost perverse when you look at it altogether.
And young photographers today are extending that range greatly with internet and social media activities and concerns. It's all good!
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
TwoShoes: "Although I've never commented before I feel strangely compelled now to add my two bobs' worth. I've long believed that all worthwhile hobbies should occupy vast amounts of your time, require the investment (ha!) of much of your disposable income and perform no other purpose than to delight the hobbyist. Ideally, they should also involve the research and acquisition of expensive arcane gear along the way which ticks several of the previous points. If the hobby does have a practical purpose, e.g., coffee, it should be performed on an eye-wateringly expensive machine that makes your friends think you are deranged. To which you reply, 'It's not just a drink it's hobby.' All understood."
Mike replies: Many times I've thought that my life has revolved around hobbies. And thinking of them as hobbies definitely takes a lot of the pressure off. Great comment; you should contribute your two bobs' worth more often!
Mark: "Very good shot of your son. Handsome lad. Surprised they allow that without a safety harness. As for hobbies, when I gave up my camera gear some years back and now only use my iPhone, I was a bit adrift. I built a garage gym during the pandemic that I’m in 2–3 times per day. But about six months ago I got my CCW [stands for "carrying a concealed weapon" —Ed.] and have been purchasing firearms and taking at least a class a month, sometimes more, and am at the range practicing twice a week. Not sure if you consider it a hobby but it sure is interesting, challenging, and keeps me busy. May even be lifesaving one day."
Mike replies: I should have mentioned this in the post: the picture shows Xander on a bouldering wall, which are on average three meters (15 feet) high. And only your outstretched hand has to go to the very top of the wall. There are thick pads below in case you fall, and for when you jump down. Xander will complete a route, touch the top, climb down a few feet and then jump off. I don't think ropes are even allowed on bouldering walls; I should ask him. It's definitely possible to get hurt on a bouldering wall, but much less likely if you have experience. Xander has a good sense of self-preservation and uses ropes on higher walls, and good practices in all sorts of climbing.
David Brown (partial comment): "I always thought it ruined the hobby to try and make money from it."
JH (partial comment): "When it comes to photography as a hobby, it often combines with other hobbies. [...] If any hobby crosses over into other hobbies more than photography, I can't imagine what it could be."
[Ed. note: You can read the full text of "partial comments" in the full Comments Section.]
Aaron: "Maybe a difference between most people who take photos (which is pretty much everyone with a cell-phone now days) and photographers is that most people don't engage with photography as a practice. By practice I mean taking photographs as an intentional long-term project or set of projects. This includes practice in the sense of doing it a lot to try and get better. But more to the point it's investing time and attention in the craft and art of taking photos. My two daughters probably take more pictures than I do. But, they have no interest in learning about taking pictures, either the technical side or the art/composition side. They have no interest in their pictures as pictures or as art. That's not a criticism. It's just a difference between them and me. I'm a photographer (in this sense) and they're not."
Mike replies: In fairness to your daughters, aren't they still very young? (Note to others: Aaron and I met over Indian food in Peoria, Illinois, when I went out to the Midwest to meet my grandson.) Maybe their seriousness will deepen when they get older. The most talented student I ever had could not have been less ambitious about photography—she was very breezy and dismissive of it as a high school student. I was never in touch with her again, but I understand she later became a professional photographer! I was very pleased to hear that. She really did have a remarkable eye.
