To celebrate my 100th blog post I thought I would do something a little different by reflecting on the importance of images in my life and muse on the possibility of photography addiction.

I have always been a visual person and when learning find that a picture is definitely worth a 1000 words. Often when studying I would create elaborate drawings which helped anchor the facts and relationships in my mind and made recall much easier. I get unreasonable pleasure in seeing good images whether as photographs, paintings, illustrations or movies. The way light falls across a face or a landscape can pull my attention and pleasantly distract me from my day. Creating images gives me intense pleasure which I have given up trying to understand and now simply enjoy. Blindness is my greatest fear. Photography is the one entirely selfish process in my life – I do it for no-one but myself and do it only to please myself. I get some pleasure in sharing my images if others enjoy them but that is of no importance in the process, nor motivation for the creation. The motivation is simply to have an image that I can look at and enjoy. It got me thinking – could photography be an addiction?

I am pretty sure that I am a reading addict. I start and end every day with reading. If I have free time and nothing to read I become agitated and irritable and have to find some way of getting something to read. This was brought home to me when the children were small and needed regular breastfeeding. At times when travelling we had to stop for feeds and if I didn’t have a book I would have to go and buy a magazine to read. Feeding days are long gone but iPads are now ideal as I continually have a huge collection of books and magazines immediately available so seldom encounter withdrawal symptoms.

Addiction is defined in Wikipedia as  ” a state that is characterized by compulsive drug use or compulsive engagement in rewarding behavior, despite adverse consequences.” We can rule out the drug use part of this definition but “compulsive engagement in rewarding behaviour” may be accurate. It is the “despite adverse consequences” that may give me an escape. Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is another known illness among photographers and I have suffered a little from this but largely can justify my purchases as obtaining the “necessary tools” for my craft.  In fairness it would need the input of others to answer whether I pursue image making to the point of adverse consequences but from my point of view there are no physical, psychological or economic consequences that I suffer (that may just be typical addict denial though). Lugging heavy equipment out into nature is good physically, sitting peacefully observing and capturing frames is relaxing and processing those into satisfying images is immensely rewarding. My images earn me a small income but not quite enough to sustain my habit so it falls into the realm of a hobby.

I don’t believe that it is an addiction.

I could stop any time.

No really, I could.

Yeah right!