The Beginner Photography Podcast

Do You Have Gear Lust Or Photo Love

• Raymond Hatfield

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#578 In this episode of the podcast, I deliver a thoughtful exploration into the emotional and psychological aspects that underlie the pursuit of photography. I dissect the difference between being infatuated with photography—often characterized by a focus on gear, novelty, and aesthetics (“lust”)—and a mature, enduring engagement with the craft, marked by sustained commitment and personal growth (“love”). Throughout the episode, I draw parallels between our relationships with people and with photography, making the argument that both require effort, patience, and vulnerability for genuine fulfillment. 

KEY TOPICS COVERED

  1. Lust vs Love in Photography - Raymond defines “lust” as the excitement for gear, newness, and surface-level satisfaction (like shooting shallow depth-of-field because you can), and contrasts this with “love,” which involves accepting photography’s frustrations, dedicating time to growth, and valuing the process.
  2. Overcoming Frustration and the Importance of Perseverance - The episode examines how photographers often feel discouraged when their skills or tools do not match their ambitions. Raymond stresses that this stage is not a signal to quit, but rather an invitation to invest more time, effort, and patience—transitioning from surface-level excitement to genuine artistic fulfillment.
  3. Concrete Methods to Deepen Engagement - Raymond provides actionable steps: carrying your camera everywhere, printing photographs, expressing gratitude for your camera through written reflection, and reading the camera’s manual thoroughly. These measures are designed to foster understanding, comfort, and growth—the core elements of a true “love” for the craft.

DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  1. Think back—what first attracted you to photography? How have your motivations evolved?
  2. Can you identify moments when photography felt like a chore? What helped you push through?
  3. What is one way you can spend more “quality time” with your camera this week?

RESOURCES:
Check out the Canon Selphy Printer - Affordable home photo printer for bringing digital photos to life.

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

raymond-hatfield_1_07-02-2025_095704:

Are you somebody who, just lusted after photography, the gear, the feeling of holding a camera in your hand, capturing images with super shallow depth of field just because you could, or are you somebody who truly loves photography? Hey Raymond here from the Beginner Photography Podcast, and today we are getting quite emotional, but in a good way. So let me start off by asking you the question of, in photography have you ever felt that maybe it's not for you. Maybe it's a lot harder than it looked before you got into it. Maybe you don't have this creative vision that, you thought that you did and maybe you thought about hanging up the camera? Well, today I want to help with that because that might not be the case. I was listening to a podcast recently. The Photography Mindset podcast and in it, I don't remember what episode it was, but there was just this kind of offhand comment about, being in love with photography versus being in lust or having a lust for photography. And they had said it like they've said it a million times before, like it was just this kind of natural thing, but it really, Made me pause because I had never really thought about photography in that way. And I think it's because photography has always kind of played an important role in my life. It's always had, it's always been one of the pillars. Some sort of image creation, whether it be photos or videos. In high school, I would bring a camera to school and take photos of my friends and the dumb stuff that we would do. I would make videos and that got me to decide to pursue a career in cinematography. I went to film school for it. I took photos while I was in film school, and then after I graduated, I eventually decided to get into weddings again, making photography a, important role in my life. But that's not always the case. I know that there's a lot of you listening who. maybe photography is just a hobby that you're getting into later in life. Maybe you've had a, a long career, in a day job, and you've thought to yourself, man, I would really love to have a creative hobby like photography. Maybe you are a new parent and thought, man, I should probably get a better camera than just an iPhone to take photos of my. Child and now feel like, wait a second, my phone takes way better photos than this camera does. or maybe you're thinking like, Hey, I've seen a lot of, photographers, doing shoots and making money and starting their own business. I would like to do that for myself. take control of my time and I'm gonna get into business, of photography. And then whatever one most applies to you get the camera and it seems so easy, right? Like we're so used to taking photos on our phone, seeing incredible images online, that it just seems like image creation is simple. And, it is simple, but it's not easy, right? So when you get this tool, it's dedicated to creating images, you realize, oh wow, there's a lot more control that I have here, and therefore, like, this is pretty complicated and it's doing things that I don't want it to do, and it's not creating the images that I see in my head. And this is, this is difficult, right? And that's kind of where we're at today because it's like when you first get into photography, there's this lust for it, right? You get so excited for it. you think about it all the time. Simple things get you excited because everything feels so new. Even if you're just doing simple things like, taking a bunch of photos of, your dog's paw while they're sleeping. But then time goes on and the magic kind of wears off. You don't think about it nonstop. The simple things that you enjoyed earlier no longer bring you as much joy. It's not as playful. And the things that were joyous and playful earlier, maybe now feel like a chore. So in those ways, photography is kind of like a relationship. And I think every relationship starts with a level of lust, right? Because we don't truly know the person when we first meet them, but something attracts us to them. And typically it's something physical. but then we grow into love. So this episode is not only for, longtime listeners, people who have had a camera for a long time, who feel like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with my camera. because I think that you'll be surprised at how much deeper you can go. And we're gonna talk about that today. But this is also for people who might be in a, transitional stage of, Hey, I got the camera. I was really excited about it, and now I'm realizing, wait, there's a whole lot more work that goes into this. It's not doing the things that I wanted it to. It's just not that good. Right. and are, are figuring out like did you just have a lust for photography and it's not for you? Or are you ready to transition into having a love of photography? Because this is the time when you have to make a decision, right? Are you somebody who, again, just lusted after photography, the gear, the feeling of holding a camera in your hand, capturing images with, super shallow depth of field just because you could, or are you somebody who truly loves photography. Understanding that if photography is not all just bubblegum and rainbows, there is real work, there is problem solving, there is real frustration, but having a love for the process or the final product makes it all worth it. That's what we're gonna find out today. And again, if you're pretty, sure on your conviction, your love towards the camera, I still encourage you to take a listen to this episode because, I think, just in, in the creation of this episode, the me kind of outlining the points that I want to talk about, I started to grow a deeper appreciation for my camera. Just being able to look at it in a different way. Something more than just, an object. Now, don't worry, I'm not going to leave my wife and kids to marry my camera. But, again, I feel like just after coming up with the ideas and the outline for this episode, I do have a much deeper appreciation for my camera and better understanding for it too. So that's never a bad thing to have. So again, encourage you to listen to this even if you identify as somebody who absolutely loves photography. But first, guess what? The Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by Cloud Spot. Speaking of love versus lust. Cloud Spot is full of people who truly love photography and even more than a love of photography, they love photographers. I've had many conversations with Gavin, the CEO of Clouds spot about, what he's doing to help photographers. And it's so interesting that like every time we talk, his talking points are always how clouds spot can be more helpful. He's asking me questions of like, what are the struggles that you as listeners have, so that he can help address those problems because, He knows that for you to enjoy photography, for you to be successful as a photographer, to create impactful images, you need some help. Help delivering beautiful image galleries That's why they invested so much money into creating Cloud Spot Studio, their client management portion of the service so that if you're new to the business side of photography, you have a helping hand right away. The ability to send out contracts, to send out invoices, to collect payments, to track the process or progress rather of a client and their photo journey, so that you don't have to write it down in a notebook or a Excel spreadsheet and, lose track of these things.'cause that's how it all started. That's where I started. So if you're somebody who has a love for photography, I promise you Cloud Spot is here to help you, deepen your love for photography. So grab a free account over@deliverphotos.com And you'll see that cloud spot is on a never ending mission to empower photographers. Again, grab your free account@deliverphotos.com. So let's start at the beginning of a relationship. A relationship starts because you see something that you like and you decide to pursue it, whether that's a person, whether that's an image, whether that's a specific camera. At some point you make the decision to go further than just seeing something, but you actually want to take action on it. So you start this relationship. Right? In those early days of a relationship, man, there is nothing more magical than that feeling, right? You're talking all day, you're holding hands everywhere. You're doing like small things like going to the post office, you know what I mean? Like small things together, you feel like you can never truly get enough of it. But then at some point the relationship goes from never getting enough of it to having enough of it. If things start to feel stale, they start to feel stagnant. You start to wonder, is this person really my person or did I misjudge them? Are they different? Was I wrong? I. And you start to question whether or not it's time to move on. But as the great Lindsay Buckingham says, in one of the most iconic love songs of all time, go your own way. If you open up, everything is waiting for you. And what that means is that when you stick around, when you dig in your heels to go deeper, so much more is revealed. If you stick around, if you do open up the things that are waiting for you are a level of security, a level of understanding, a level of true connection that really can only come from lots of time spent together and being vulnerable with each other. Lust will get you there, but it won't keep you there, you know, in love, your mood may change. You may have a really bad day, you may be angry, but the level of care and respect that you have for the relationship is unconditional. So while you might be angry at you know what somebody does, or what your camera does, you don't think to yourself, that's it, I'm done. Because that level of care and respect is. Is unconditional, but in lust, you're happy to just text and call all day and it feels good to have that attention. But in, in love, you have to spend quality time together in person. My wife and I, I dunno if I've shared this story on the podcast before my wife and I actually met on Craigslist. Yeah. Fun story. This was like at the height of the Craigslist killer, like back in oh nine. Yeah. Looking back, like real questionable judgment on her part and my part honestly. But regardless, we were in two very different locations, her and Indiana, me and in LA at the time. And it was hard to spend time together in person, but in, in lust. Again, it doesn't matter as much because you're happy calling and texting all day because again, it feels good to have that attention that somebody is paying attention to you, that you feel valuable, right? But love could not have grown if we didn't spend time, quality time together in person. With lust, you look at something as a physical shiny object. in love you see a lifelong companion. But that transition phase, I think is where a lot of people get stuck because there's a lot of questions, you know. but if you're considering continuing the transition from lust to love, I think you first realize that there's, I. more than just a physical desire there. in photography, that would be a fast lens, a full frame sensor, weather sealed body, something like that. but you start to be drawn more into the personality, into the charm. Things like, oh, lens flare, or, the way that highlights render a slight glow or just how vibrant yellows are you start to see the world differently through your relationship with a camera. You start thinking of how you can interact in the world with them rather than just satisfying a physical closeness. You're starting to think more about we instead of me, and then that's when your feelings deepen. Right? When you do decide to go deeper with the camera, you start to feel safe. You start to feel comfortable, rather than just trying to show them off. like Lindsay Buckingham said, if you open up, everything is waiting for you. And here's the thing about lust as well, is that, lust fades once it has been satisfied. Meaning, you could go out and buy the best camera in the entire world. Okay? But then what? or wait a second. now a new camera's coming out. So this deep desire, what felt like a deep desire for this thing, for this object, for this person, for this camera. Once you get it it can start to fade. However, love it does not do that. It grows over time. A love for photography is realizing, oh, I don't need a hundred megapixels. 26 is more than I've needed for literally anything. I don't need 14 stops of dynamic range. I don't need whatever is next. What I have, it works. I'm able to create something that, I enjoy that others enjoy, that can communicate a message that I'm trying to share with the world. Lust focuses on that, that sexual gratification. The first wedding that you show up to with like, a fancy L lens or the newest mirrorless camera, fancy camera straps. You feel incredible. You feel like a million bucks. You're like, here I am. I am at the top of the world. I am a professional, even though none of those things Speak to the image quality, to the ability to create an image that makes anybody feel anything. In love, love values an emotional connection. and in photography, that's artistic compatibility. The camera creates a feeling in the image that is more than the sum of its settings. You have this feeling of like, man, I've never created something like this, with another camera. Sure, it's going to have its faults, but together you feel like you're working more as a team to create something beautiful rather than working solo to achieve a very singular mission. And that's because lust seeks personal pleasure. The people who are excited to talk about their hassle blad or their Leica, when they just got into photography, I mean less than a few years of photography experience. Those are the people chasing the lust. I've been in a room with a photographer who had a hassle blad and could not stop talking about how it was the same type of camera that went to the moon. That is cool, but like it doesn't mean anything for the images that you are able to create, whereas love prioritizes each other's happiness and wellbeing. The fulfillment that you'll get from photographing family portraits for some sort of charity event with an entry level camera and a kit lens will far outweigh the deep satisfaction that you'll get from simply owning like a, like a M six or a hassle blad. It's very surface level. It's very cheap. When my wife and I started, dating, I wanted to impress her. I would buy her gifts. I would make her feel special by trying to spend tons of quality time with her. I mean, one, because it was a long distance relationship, so whenever we had the ability to be together, I would want to spend like deep quality time with her. Years later, I found out that, what she loved most early on in, in our relationship was not those things. It was not the gifts, it was not the quality tied together. It was, how I would plan out our dates. It was, would drive everywhere. It was, me just taking charge of what we were going to do because what that meant was that her experience of the date became pure enjoyment. there was no thinking or deciding or questioning herself. It was, she was along for the ride and I took care of the rest. And I come to find out again years later that her love language is acts of service. When I do things that make her life easier, that's acts of service. It wasn't gifts. It wasn't sending her flowers. I mean, those helped of course, let her know that I was listening and thinking of her. But acts of service was the thing that filled her cup. So today, in our relationship, 16 years later. I. Always, I have a very keen eye for acts of service. I'm always on the lookout for things that I can do to make her life easier. Things like filling up her gas tank when I'm out, handling the wagon full of equipment when she's coaching our daughter's softball team. When I hear her upstairs, waking up in the morning, getting up outta bed, I will start her a cup of coffee. But none of those things I would've done early on in our relationship and not because I wouldn't have done them, I just didn't know that that's what she valued, and I wouldn't have known that those things were so important to her unless I invested actual time into learning more about her. And I mean, look, we had arguments as every young couple does. And I had thought to myself as I'm sure everybody does, like, yeah, I don't know if this is gonna work out, but it took me opening up and everything was waiting for me. You know, it took it, going through those things to get to the point to where I know her better, where she knows me better. We know each other fuller and in a very loving way. So no matter where you're at with photography, you are flirting with it. You're fighting with it, you're falling in love with it. Remember that the more time you invest with your camera, with photography, the more it gives back to you. You get out of it, what you put into it, you know, you wouldn't marry somebody just because of their looks. That's why, people don't get married on the first date. I mean, maybe in Las Vegas you would, but you fall for their quirks. You fall for their outlook on life, their reliability. Your camera's the same. The more time you spend really getting to know it, spending time with it, the more magic you'll make together. So in preparing for this episode, I looked up some facts, right? So, fun fact here in Las Vegas, the marriage capital of the world, they have the highest divorce rate in the entire country of 4.2 people per thousand married. Now, the national average for comparison is two, meaning Las Vegas has more than double the divorces of the national average. Why is this? Well, it's attributed to the fact that Nevada has the most relaxed rules on getting married. Meaning it's easier to get married while you're still in the lust phase, and then guess what? The lust phase eventually and inevitably ends and then turns out twice as many people realize, oh, this isn't actually somebody who I'm in love with. But man, at first it was fiery. It felt amazing. It felt like this person completed me. Now when surveyed, many divorced people said that they were surprised how much their partner changed once they became married. That's interesting. Did they change or did you not spend enough time with them to know who they really were or both? I personally, I hope that I've changed. I hope that I've grown and I've become a better version of myself than I was at 25 when we got married. I know my wife has changed. Neither of us are the person that we were when we got married, but we've changed to become better together, to become less selfish of ourselves, and we make a decision every day to stay together because at our core, we know that we truly love each other. Here's another, little something interesting that I found in, in looking this up, 64% of divorced men and 74% of divorced women think that their partners should have tried harder. That means that there is a huge number of marriages that end where both partners think that the other one should have tried harder. Now what does that mean? That is simply a lack of effort and communication. And in fact, the number one thing that couples who, identify as happily married say, is that they understand the value of compromise. You go your whole life before marriage, only thinking about yourself, where are you gonna go to school, whatcha gonna do with your life, what are you gonna have for dinner? Like all day you think about yourself, that's perfectly normal. And then one day you now have to consider an entirely other person with a completely different background, upbringing, set of ideals, lens that they just view the world through overnight. All of your decisions now change from me to we, and that's the only way that you can make it work, is if you make the mental decision of changing the way you think of, of the decisions that you make from me to we. If you don't, if you still continue to only think of me, well, it's not gonna work. That's why lust works, because it's a me, me, me, game. But love is a wee, wee wee game. Meaning it takes work to make it work. It's a lot of work to make it work. Absolutely, I will admit that, but again, you have to work to make love work. Love isn't easy. It doesn't just happen one day. It takes work. Maybe your camera was not made specifically for shooting sports. Maybe like me, you have a daughter in softball and you want to take photos of the softball game and you want to get that perfect swing with the ball going, just an inch away from the bat or something like that. But your camera, again was not made for sports. Like it was made for a slower pace. It's more of an entry level camera, so you can only shoot four frames per second rather than 30. Well. Okay, so it doesn't do this. One thing that, that you've decided that you want to do are you gonna throw out the camera right into the trash and then spend five times as much on a different camera for that one feature? Or are you gonna dig in? Are you gonna give it effort? And are you gonna try your best? Are you going to learn to compromise? Are you gonna do your part of the relationship or things like working on your positioning of where you are, where you're shooting from, working on your timing to increase your chances of capturing the right moment, even if it is only at four frames per second. Are you going to try harder or are you gonna say, I'm done, this camera doesn't. Try enough. This camera doesn't put in enough effort for what I need it to do. And are you gonna give up before you really learned what the tool was capable of? And by the way, remember that like photographers were shooting for decades on film when like one frame per second was amazing and they still got incredible photos. So like four frames a second, you're gonna complain about that. Maybe not you, but it's just an example. You get it. Okay, so then that brings us to the question of how do we transition from LUT to love? The way that we transition from lust to love, whether it be in a relationship, or, with our camera is two things. It's time and it's being vulnerable. Now I can spend a lot of time with my friends or neighbors and not fall in love with them, and a stranger can tell me something incredibly vulnerable and I not fall in love with them. It takes both, and both of you have to work together on it. So step one is to simply spend more time with your camera if you don't already. Seriously, find a way to bring it with you everywhere. I mean, make your camera an every day carry. Before you walk out the doors, do a phone, wallet, keys, camera, check. By simply spending more time with the camera. By having it around, you're going to just naturally want to use it. You're gonna naturally see something and think, Hey, I'm gonna try to take a photo of that, and then you're gonna try it. And because you're gonna be in different lighting scenarios, shooting different subjects, you're just naturally going to grow a deeper understanding of not only how your camera works, but also like how you see the world. So maybe buy yourself a camera bag that is gonna make bringing your camera with you easier. Buy a neck strap that you can just throw the camera over your shoulder as you're walking around doing whatever. Put it in your purse. Cameras are not as fragile as you think that they are. And, it doesn't have to be perfectly padded. You want to remove the barrier to taking photos, not make it more difficult. So find out ways that you can spend more time with your camera. The next thing you can do is start to get physical. Yeah, this is my favorite part, just kidding one of the things that I love to do in photography is to print out my photos. Putting out your photos that you hold them in a way that like you don't naturally interact with your images when they're on a computer. So here's what I want you to do. Just simply print out five photos that you've taken over the past year. Maybe these are photos that you absolutely love. Maybe this is a photo that you wish turned out a little bit better, because I think that once you get it in your hand, you're going to realize how truly, Amazing it is. And how different of an experience you have dealing with it in your hands. There's been photos where on the computer I just see all of the technical imperfections, but once I print them, it all fades away and it feels entirely like a different image. I have a Canon selfie printer. It's not like, taking a selfie on your cell phone, but it's just the name. You can look'em up on Amazon. They're relatively cheap. I think like 200 bucks, maybe like 150 bucks. Anyway, they print out four by sixes at home really, really quickly. It has air prints, so you know, you don't even have to plug it into your computer. It's fun. It's easy to just make these four by sixes. But if you don't have one, you can upload your photos to Costco, to Walmart, whoever, and pay like four bucks to print out five photos. I just want you to enjoy the physical nature of prints and start to look at your relationship with photography a little bit differently. And the best way to do that is again, to get physical. Another thing you can do is, and this one is really gonna sing to the hopeless romantics out there, is to write a love letter to your camera. I'm dead serious. This may seem extremely cheesy and honestly, I think that the cheesier that you make, the love letter, the better, but you know, thank it. Thank your camera for all the moments that it has helped you to capture for being there for you during some amazing experiences, trips, express gratitude. When you express gratitude towards something, you mentally build a stronger connection to it. It shifts your view of the camera from only thinking of its limitations to thinking of all the great things that you have done together, creating a confirmation bias that your camera can capture great photos. Talk about your first impressions of it. Were you nervous? Were you intimidated? Were you excited? I'm serious. Talk about how frustrated you've been with it, and how you've grown with it. You used to think that, maybe your camera would mis focus all the time, but it turns out you just didn't know how to properly change your focus point to where you wanted it. So a love letter for me. Might in fact, hold on, lemme grab the camera right here. Might sound something like this. Dear Fujifilm, ex Pro two, I kind of bo you on an impulse. I told myself that, I wanted to shoot more street, more documentary, more travel, and that you would be perfect for these things, and even though you weren't the most practical camera at the time, you were rather expensive. You were a crop sensor compared to the full frame camera that I already had and was shooting with. I took a chance and it paid off because you made me fall in love with photography in a different way. You reminded me that creativity comes from limitations. That beauty is is what you see, and it's not just what you own. So thank you for that. I love you. Okay. Just kidding. I added in that extra part for humor. I've never told my camera that I love it. That does feel weird to say that, but in a weird way. I feel a little bit closer to my camera now saying that out loud. So again, give it a shot. You don't have to do it publicly in front of thousands of listeners all over the world. You could just hold your camera in your hands and look at it and say these things in your head and then that be it. But do something, show it gratitude because mentally that it will make a change in how you view your camera. And another thing you can do is to read, read your camera's diary to learn more about it. I forgot that I wrote that down as a bullet point to call it a diary. But, I'm talking about your camera's manual. Trust me, I know how boring it sounds to read a manual, but I will say that I've learned more about the cameras that I've owned by reading through the manuals than anything else. So take your camera's manual. And if you don't have one, like you can find it online, and buy it seriously. It's gonna be like four or$5. Nobody wants those things, even though they're so full of helpful information. Like seriously imagine being able to read somebody's diary. You're gonna learn so much about them, even when you think, you know a lot about them. The camera's manual is so insightful, and you're gonna learn more about the small features of your camera that you just didn't know existed. You're gonna learn things that you didn't know you could do, and when you discover those things, it is going to inspire you to try new things and explore and go deeper with the camera. I have never enjoyed country music. In fact, if you were to ask me, I would say that I have a disdain for country music. You might say that I loa country music. My wife on the other hand, does not feel the same way about country music. In fact, she quite enjoys it. Learning about her love and appreciation for country music. I didn't understand at first, but knowing this about her, I bought her tickets to a little country music festival. I went with her and even though I'm not into country music, seeing her light up, seeing her get so excited and just feel free and alive was amazing. She was so magnetic. If I didn't take the time to learn the things that she liked or could do, I would've missed out on that. And even though I'm not gonna take her to country music festivals every month or, or year, or several years, I now know what's possible if I need it. The camera manual's the same way, you're going to see things and think to yourself, I don't know how useful that would be to me, or I don't think I would use that at all, but give it a try. And deepening your understanding for something just might completely change the way that you photograph everything. It might not, but it just might. And are you willing to miss out on that chance? You don't have to read it cover to cover, but if you were to take your camera manual to a coffee shop and just sit down and skim through it and only read the things that caught your attention, again, I think that you would be absolutely shocked at how much you can learn about this beloved camera of yours that you thought that you knew just about everything about. And that's gonna give you such a deeper appreciation for your camera. And it's also gonna give you some confidence, right? Knowing that, oh, there's now new things that I can add to my toolkit of being a photographer. So there you go. There's a few things that you can try to either fall deeper in love with your camera or start to make that transition from lust to love. And remember, like photography, like love isn't just about the best moments. It's not just about the highlights, if you will. It's about those everyday moments. It's about the frustrations, it's about the quirks, it's about the triumphs. It's about those quiet moments together. So fall in love with photography again. And that's all that I got today. Until next time, remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon.