randy98mtu wrote in post #18780097
So I want to know how you all have so much time to go out shooting. Is photography a hobby or more? Are you retired? Do you have kids?
I'm 42 and manage a small family business. I was an engineer until last February when I was able to escape corporate America for this new gig. My wife is the breadwinner and I am now managing the office and starting a new career path. We have 4 children ages 9, 8, 6 and 5. So with my wife being the breadwinner, I'm left managing the home much of the time as well. Free time to get out and shoot is hard to come by, so many of my shots are from behind the wheel or just around the house of the kids doing their thing.
We usually go on a couple of big vacations each year and that is where I get to explore photography more. I have a fair amount of time in the evenings while we are relaxing after the kids go to bed, but of course it's dark out and I rarely have the energy left to go out anyway. Hopefully as the kids get older I'll have more time and energy to get out.
36 with two girls, 5 and 3. Buying a new house this year has taken a lot of time and money to invest in, so shooting opportunities have been slim this year. Didn’t help that I sold off all my gear last December when I thought I would close on my first offered house (little did I know that I wouldn’t close on my eventual house until late June). Wife works 12-14 hour shifts, 2-3 times a week and I work a full time job in the banking industry, so having real family time is hard, since one of us seems to always be catching up on sleep. On the days the wife works, she comes home at 7-7:30, so after dinner and reading to the kids and putting them to bed, it’s after 9 and all we want to do is go to bed. With the winters getting darker too, I haven’t found the motivation nor energy to go to the gym that’s 2 minutes away for th past 6 weeks.
Before kids I would shoot mostly architecture or vacations when the wife and I would go out, now it’s 90% the kids. Don’t feel bad, a lot of mine is the kids just messing around the house or going to the playground. Now that my oldest is in kindergarten she’s starting to be more active and playing indoor soccer and just signed up for Ninja classes so it should be fun. We try and take 1 week long trip a year, alternating between flying and driving. As you know flying somewhere with a family of 4+ can get expensive, so we’ll drive on even years and fly on odd years. Because we couldn’t vacation this year cause of the house, planning a week long trip up to Canada (Toronoto, Montreal, Quebec, etc). Outside of a week long travel vacation, we try and do a 1-2 night trip once a quarter, somewhere within 1-4 hours of drive.
One thing I’ve started to do more of is to take more video and less stills. Being that these cameras now shoot so fast, so clean, and so accurate, having 10 pictures of your kid drawing a picture all start to look the same, but a 10-15 clip gives me more joy lately. For me it’s watching th video clips that make me realize how fast time goes and how fast these kids are growing up. I mean this time last year when we started to look for a house, my youngest was super shy and barely spoke, now I have to trick her into stop singing and to stop asking daddy questions when she goes to bed.
I'm in the metal fabrication trade [mainly MIG, a bit of TIG]- I make balustrades, railings, gates, structural steelwork, barriers & lots of other bits & pieces. Live with my equal half 
She has 'adult' kids. Mine are 13 & 14 & I have them every other weekend & for tea during the week - Their mum & me divorced almost 6 years ago now.
