All the things that are worth doing, take time. (I’d like to credit someone for this quote, but too many people said it.) Photography for me is a part-time pursuit, so finding time to do it seriously has not been trivial. However, it hasn’t been particularly difficult either. How can this be? Actually, photography is naturally integrated in most of my activities, both within and outside work.
The main part of my work is academic research in fluid mechanics. In my lab, we use flow visualization (photography of fluid flows). While the goals are far from artistic (we measure forces on submerged objects, etc.) and the techniques are highly specialized (we use lasers as light sources, for example), the basic concepts are the same as in conventional photography. So there is considerable cross-pollination between my interests in experimental fluid mechanics and taking pictures.
Family activities are even more easily connected to picture-taking. Photography gives focus to our vacation trips. It keeps us closer to our families and friends all over the World. Sharing my photography skills with friends feels good, because there are not many other options to give something as a gift, without buying it. Photographs are something of value that I can create myself. Hopefully, this makes them more personal as a gift. So doing photography while spending time with family and friends does not take away from personal time, but enhances it.
It is the same with my practice of kendo. Taking pictures of matches and practices is not only interesting from photography point of view, but also allows me to study kendo more deeply. In fact, I wrote about balancing these perspectives in this post.
I believe that if we look at our activities closely enough, we find that there is no such thing as multitasking. Having said this, we do variety of things in our lives, and sometimes certain activities, skills or interests enhance our experiences in other areas.
