Hobbies

I used to think that most people developed hobbies early in life and stuck with them. Sure they may evolve in one way or another but in the end, I thought we would stick with the hobbies we discovered and fell in love with when we were young. It makes sense though; if you start doing something when you were younger, chances are you become good at it and continue doing it for a while. You might take on a particular sport at the age of ten, and be playing it twenty years later. Or you might buy your first car as a teenager and develop an enthusiasm for motorsport. For me, I can't say I've always stuck with the same hobbies. I played a specific sport for the best part of my twelve years from an early age but no longer play, developed skills producing music (which I rarely do these days) and find myself looking for new challenges and opportunities to learn something new. Lately, I've been exploring the art photography.

I'm nowhere near at the level of photographic expert (nor do I want to be), but I've always found photography a fascinating art form full of challenges and opportunities to create. At the end of June, I came across an end-of-financial-year deal I couldn't pass by and purchased my first DSLR camera after reviewing substantial quantities of online reviews: The Sony Alpha a6400 with a Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS kit lens. It's nothing special, but it's the perfect entry-level camera for me to explore this art. Evolving from musical art to visual art begins the start of a new hobby, or to be more accurate, a new creative outlet. To up the creative game, I subsequently invested in the Sony 20mm f/2.8 point-and-shoot pancake lens, giving me even more flexibility to create all kinds of compositions (and I may have more lenses in my sights...).

I've always been a creative person, but now feels like the right time to create a new style of art. Music required I focus my attention on the aural senses to fine-tune various sounds and formulate them into a carefully curated pseudo symphony, thus my aural senses have become accustomed to listening carefully to musical elements. However, my visual senses, for lack of a better word, have been neglected over the years. It was in 2016 that I got my first pair of glasses when I discovered I had a mild deterioration of sight. My visual prescription is barely noticeable to the average person but getting that pair of glasses made me appreciate how sharp and beautiful the world is. It may be ever since then, that I've taken far more notice of the visual art all around us - in human-made art, nature, architecture and composition. I never noticed it, but now it's almost all I see. Getting a decent DSLR camera will allow me to transcribe what can be seen into art that describes my own visual interpretation of the world around me.

I'm excited to embark on this new 'hobby', but nevertheless this is an evolution of my always creative brain into exploring a new sense and challenging myself to learn a distinctly different art form. I can't wait to share my favourite pieces with you!