PhotosBySteve

I've been retired for three years now. I devote the majority of my time to photography. Creating images, processing images and constantly learning the finer points of all related areas.
Photography helps keep me young and my brain active.

I hope you enjoy retirement to it's fullest!

pendennis

Congratulations on your upcoming "graduation". I've been retired for over ten years, and I've made photography a greater part of my life in the last three years. I bought a Nikon D200 upon retirement, but then sold off all my film equipment, going full digital. That was a huge mistake.

I've been learning at a faster rate than I ever hoped; and not just photography. My interests in science, history, politics, as well as the shooting sports, have all grown almost exponentially. I've found that my curiosity, or thirst for learning, continues to grow. I'll never be a astrophysicist or genetics researcher, but those two sciences are among the two that hold particular interest.

I do some editorial writing, and have done a lot of political science, history, and economics research that family and job responsibilities made difficult in my working years. When I graduated with a degree in finance/economics, minoring in political science, I really didn't quite grasp the broad connection to all three disciplines. Now, after re-reading Adam Smith, Sir Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, and others' writings, I now have a better grasp as to how everything is so interconnected.

You're just entering the greatest time of your life. Enjoy!!

jcolton

Before I retired, I made a list of 12 things I was going to do when I retired to insure that I wouldn't get bored. My first 4 on the list were travel, golf, volunteering and photography. After started photography, I three the list away because I didn't have time for anything else. I bought a Canon 6D FF DSLR and eventually three L lenses and a 50 mm Zeiss prime. I joined the Palo Alto camera club and picked the brains of the best photographers. I combine photography with travel and I do volunteer photography for several nonprofit organizations, e.g I photograph for Canopy, a tree planting organization. I exhibit at our local library, at a cafe and at our local senior center. For me, getting positive feedback from these experiences is very motivating to keep improving my photography.

jcolton

Before I retired, I made a list of 12 things I was going to do when I retired to insure that I wouldn't get bored. My first 4 on the list were travel, golf, volunteering and photography. After I started photography, I threw the list away because I didn't have time for anything else! I bought a Canon 6D FF DSLR and eventually three L lenses and a 50 mm Zeiss prime. I joined the Palo Alto camera club and picked the brains of the best photographers. I combine photography with travel and I do volunteer photography for several nonprofit organizations, e.g I photograph for Canopy, a tree planting organization. I exhibit at our local library, at a cafe and at our local senior center. For me, getting positive feedback from these experiences is very motivating to keep improving my photography.

tinwhistle

Best wishes on your retirement!! I was forced into retirement ten years ago at the age of 62 due to a heart attack. I've been taking pictures my entire life, so retirement left me with plenty of time to explore new areas of photography, which led me into an (almost) full time career. I work for a local general contractor (home builder) recording the building process from start to finish on each of his jobs, plus several of the local farmers have found use for my skill with a camera. A big negative in what I do is that it's dirty work. Equipment needs tender loving care. But, I love it!

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I retired in 2008, decided to expand my photography. Went to school, too 4 courses on photography. ( unfortunately I knew more than one of the instructors ) Then a class on Photoshop.
Many days, I get up and pick up my bag and off I go to any park in the area.( or out of the area) The out doors, the walking, the shooting all helps keep me young.

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

Been retired since Nov 2008. Joined a photo class/club in the same year. 80% of the 7,952 pictures in my catalogue were taken after retirement. (actually more than 80% as that is only counting files and some have hundreds of pictures in them.) My brother's highest praise of one of my shots has gone from "adequate" to "nice".

al lehman Loc: San jose, ca.

I too am a retiree and love my newly found passion, photography. Fortunately the wife has allowed me to purchase high quality equipment. More importantly, photography keeps me active in the outdoors walking wildlife refuges, traveling to destinations rich in wildlife and landscape jewels. I spent one year researching cameras, taking classes to learn photography basics. Lastly, I'm finding photography a challenge and for me this motivates me to continue learning, remaining active, and producing a product that I can take pride in. Do the research and learn before you invest a bunch of money. Good luck and enjoy, it's a great hobby.

Regis Loc: Coeur d' Alene, Idaho

Photography is a great hobby, especially for us retired people that will be able to spend more time with our photographs.

Base_fiddle

I retired 8 years ago with aspirations of getting the barnacles off my golf swing. This year, I decided to focus on photography in my "off season" - the summer. I've learned a tremendous amount from this forum and appreciate the many intelligent comments from experienced photographers who share their knowledge with us. I actually find that I'm learning...the old dog routine.

If you want to learn better techniques and improve your photography, this is an excellent place to learn.

I've found that I am spending so much time on photography - scanning in negatives, taking and editing pictures and read posts to the site, that my wife thinks I'm still working and is frustrated that nothing is happening to her Honeydo list. That's okay with me.

Before I retired, I wondered out loud what I would do to stay busy. I was don't not to worry about it. That was sage advise, because if you like something you will take the time to develop it. Good luck in retirement!

Bike guy Loc: Atlanta

And here is another a reply. Retired in 2011, turning 76 in two weeks. I don't have enough time to do everything. Of course I have slowed down some, well maybe more than some.
I do a lot of PP, started with LR, still use it, now ON1. I bought a Nikon 3100, upped to a 3300 and now Nikon 5200. I would like the Nikon 7000 series but it is a bit heavy for my arthritic hands. I enjoy this forum; have learned much from reading posts. Watch a lot of YouTube as well. I want to print more of my photos; and frame.
Started sketching last month. Never could draw, but never too old to learn.
Welcome to your new career.

1amateur

I'm not retired yet, I'm looking at 2 more years.I love photography and looking forward to taking more photos and learning all that I can!!

Cumulolente

Hi, and I hope that you enjoy photography in your retirement as much as I am. My first experiences with photography were at my father's side about 1954. While he was a histochemist, he was also an excellent self-taught photographer by necessity, making his own hardware for photomicography, and using his Voightlander view camera and Contax rangefinder cameras, as well as another view camera which apparently got stolen. We developed film in a home darkroom, using primarily print film at first. He changed to diapositive film later, with more modern cameras. I have an extremely worn FG of his, and my sister-in-law has a later Nikon he used. Mother used Nikon and Mamiya. But back to what I have found: My wife had no hobbies beyond cooking, and we were both interested in native wildflowers. I had last used the cameras I had more than a decade ago, and brought them out to record some of our plants blooming at home, to experiment with the diverse films that I had that had expiration/fresh dates indicating they should be used before 2005 or 1998, respectively with the cameras that I had, and bought a Lumix and a factory reconditioned Fuji. Neither of the latter two were so good for color that I trusted them, and the dynamic range of the Lumix stank, I thought (but produced macros better than I expected under some light conditions with filters off, and although the eyepiece viewfinder was crappy for focusing and too coarse, it did have manual focus. F2.8 across the full zoom range was useful when I shot landscapes, too. The Fuji also produced good macros, shot landscapes that required color correction, was pretty good for a 10 Mp camera with long range zoom and no manual focus, yet far from what I wanted. So you see, I had much learning to do about hardware, choices, filters, settings, and found enough in that to keep me busy in spare time.
Cumulolente
On to the wildflowers: She couldn't hike, but we had vehicles that could take us to where there were native plants, with or without wildflowers, over much of this large state, from seashore to desert, inland valleys to high mountains, etc. About 50,000 miles in two years, not counting the other vehicle, and off-road truck I have. The camera collection has grown to include medium format and large format film cameras, many lenses, filters, some software, scanners, printers, etc. The budget is the limit there, plus one's time to learn new characteristics and quirks of various generations of Nikons, Minolta, Mamiya, and a Pentax.
Use of the enlargers my father left still waits, and frankly, I don't know if he gave the better ones to his camera club fund raisers, as he did with the Voigtlander and the Contax. Use of the photomicography lenses also waits for me to find matching hardware; the subjects are all around in biological subjects, but one could spend another lifetime assembling enough matching old generation equipment.
The last several years, especially, photography has been consuming much of our retirement time, and she is becoming so expert with her recent generation Samsung phone camera that she is the backup to most of the botanical field film shots I take now. The field has brought us to a common hobby, with her taking mostly the digital side (I know inside that I'll be following that, for the best digital equipment generally surpassed my film equipment a year or two ago, but then there is the art in film photography that is different from what one does with digital photography, and there is the intersection of the two in scanning and software....) What you do with photography should only be limited by your time, taste, interests in subjects, and perhaps a budget.
Have fun with it!

Gregger Loc: Phoenix area

is

Well pre-retire,
My wife and I don't travel anymore. Depending upon what you enjoy photographing the range is open. I enjoy just about anything other than portraits. I am not a master of the camera, but composition I am very good at doing. So I have been told. Looking around the area where you live one will find several photos to take. Whether it be birds, butterflies, landscape, people working, etc. The entire world opens up when one uses their mind and eyes to compose. Just the other day, I told a fellow UHG member I was not great at understanding the physics of a camera. The basics I do understand. He replied that is wasn't necessary. He went on to say, much of photography is how one composes each shot. I suppose what it comes down to is what is a phrase everyone understands. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. If others are also impressed, the photo becomes a plus. The main purpose is to enjoy this phenomenal hobby. I suppose I am being rather philosophical, but it is my way of looking at photography. It doesn't mean I have stopped learning. Also, you will find no other place to find help or advice when needed. The people on this site are remarkable and understanding.

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

I know Im not the oldest guy on the hog. I retired when I hit 63. Im 87 now. Joined here when I hit 81. Thats why Im Hal81. I retired Quality control manager from the aerospace industry. And also retired from my wedding photography of over 30 years. I don't have to make any more money so all the photography I do now I give away. That way I don't have to be bothered by the tax man. The main advice I have to give what ever you chose to do upon retirement is to stay active. If you just are looking forward or hitting that lounge chair you wont be around to long. Don't over do it but don't sit this one out.