amateur: French, “one who loves, lover” (16c., restored from Old French ameour) — Online Etymology Dictionary

24 hours ago, I found a used, decade-old Fujifilm X100 on Craigslist and picked it up from a guy in Ballard. It’s a digital rangefinder that looks and feels like an old film camera. I’ve been thinking about buying one for years, but I think today was finally the right day to get one. The camera is gaining popularity on the internet due to TikToks and YouTube videos about it and it’s getting harder to find one each day— the latest version is reselling above its retail price. But in order to explain the full reason why, I have to tell the story of my love of photography.

Parker Shaffer hangs up Christmas lights in Wallingford (Fujifilm X100s)

My favorite photographer is a true amateur. I stumbled upon Ryan Booth in roughly 2014 on Instagram. He’s a successful filmmaker who also took photos on his walks around New York City on his Fujifilm X100, edited them with the VSCO C9 preset, and uploaded a photo every day with the hashtag #fujiframez (this idea took off, and this hastag now has almost a million posts). My one-way, parasocial relationship with this man was strong. In high school, when I saw his photos every day they made me feel something. I remember telling friends “look how GOOD these are!”, scrolling through his feed where I had liked every single post.

I’d describe these images as street photography with strong elements of shadows, and it’s still my favorite style of photography. I looked at his photos and I could feel in my bones that they were important to me. It was the first time I can remember thinking that I loved a photograph.

Photography was how I interacted with people and nature. I took photos of friends on ski and rock climbing trips, capturing people I loved experience genuine joy. I paired photography with every hobby and adventure I could think of and brought my camera with me everywhere. I loved it.

Green Lake, Nov 27, 2022 (Fujifilm X100s)

In college, I decided to take photography more seriously and started to make money from it. I shot for my school newspaper and was promoted to Photo Editor, managing a staff of photographers. I traveled to Las Vegas to cover Gonzaga in the WCC tournament, taking thousands of images of one of the best college basketball teams in the country. My senior year, I worked for my university’s marketing department under a skilled full-time professional and shot events like graduation, basketball games, and scholarship dinners.

Expectations and standards were high in the office, and I significantly improved my lighting and editing skills. My mentor would spend afternoons with me demonstrating different light modifiers and angles to get just the right look. But each event I shot, I would spend hours on my computer perfecting the images on top of a maxed out credit load in a demanding major. I wasn’t sleeping enough and was staying up until 2am most nights doing schoolwork, and was barely making it through each week. By the end of college, I was pretty burned out.

I was in the marketing office when I got the call. It was from a tech company, and I was being offered a full-time position in software engineering. I was so was grateful for the opportunity, but had mixed feelings. I had built up a fairly impressive portfolio and resume but the road to professional photography wasn’t going to be easy, and there was no guarantee things would work out. I accepted the job. I felt like I let everyone down who helped me to get to that point, only to leave my dream for a higher paying and less fulfilling job. And I wasn’t going to easily forgive myself.

I didn’t take many photos after that.

This year, I bought an old Olympus AF-1 point-and-shoot and a few rolls of film. It seemed like it would be fun and trendy to have an easy-to-use, automatic film camera, and it was more so than I could have imagined. I learned that each photo I took was one of a precious 36 in a roll that cost real money to buy and develop. I also didn’t get to see the images right away, taking away any less-fulfilling instant gratification. I brought it with me to parties, on boats, got drunk and hungover with it, all while flashing the built-in flash at all kinds of smiling people. It was so fun to shoot with, and in the few months I used it, I started to feel something again. It was a familiar feeling that I hadn’t felt in a few years: a love of photography.

And with that love, I’ve started taking photography more seriously again. I bought my own lighting gear and offered to take portraits of anyone who will come to my makeshift studio. I’ve started pursuing personal projects and learning with each success and failure. But as I start to build up these skills again and spend more time editing photos, I haven’t stopped thinking about what happened last time.

For this reason, I bought a little camera on Craigslist. A camera where it seems like everyone who uses it falls in love with photography. One that Ryan Booth took beautiful photos on every single day that made me feel something. A camera small enough I can take it with me everywhere I go in life, but without paying prohibitively expensive film and development costs. One that I can take photos for me, and not for any client or anyone else. A mirrorless, digital rangefinder with a fixed 23mm f/2 lens. And the first day has been a blast.

A man with a Fujifilm X100f watches the sunset (Fujifilm X100s)

Ryan Booth used to do AMAs (Ask Me Anything) on his Instagram stories back when I was a die-hard fan, and in preparation for this essay I went back and read the archives. One piece of advice stood out to me today, because it’s a lesson that I’ve been slowly learning throughout my entire journey with photography. Ryan figured out this lesson by himself, and it’s taken me years of stress and feeling like I’m letting people down to come to the same conclusion myself:

Q: What’s the worse advice you’ve ever been given?
A: ‘If you love something, do it for your job.’
That’s a truism that’s only partly true.
The part that people leave out is just because you love something doesn’t man you need to turn it into a for-profit enterprise.
For me, I spent a couple of years trying to do photography for a living. I LOVE photography. I HATED trying to do it for work.
Now, I do photography ONLY for myself and it’s one of my favorite things in the world.
@ryanbooth, 2018

Matt Repplier is a 25 year old software engineer who loves photography, reflection and friends. This blog serves as his creative outlet and space to consider his experiences.

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