Welcome to my pinned post.
I'm a white, queer, non-binary, neurodivergent, disabled hobby photographer, freely sharing my works with the world.
I take photos for my own learning and enjoyment, and I share them publicly under Creative Commons licenses—almost always just the Attribution license, which boils down to 'free to use, as long as you say it was me who took the photo, that I released it under that license, and, if modified, that it has been modified'.
I was raised in the era of film. Photography was always a hobby that came with monetary strings attached. I did get to play around with a film point-and-shoot as a kid, and my mom paid for a few rolls of film and the developing and printing. I learned the basics of photography through a few high school and college classes—SLR, black and white film, access to a darkroom, etc.—and I had photography-adjacent careers a few times in my adult life. But I never got to do it only for the fun of it. Even when personal digital cameras came out and I tried a few of the models I could afford, the short battery life and lack of rechargeables made them money-eaters too.
Phone cameras were pretty bad, when they first came out. My iPod Touch was my first digital camera that I could play with, but my time and energy were going into being an undiagnosed autistic ADHDer struggling with their last-ditch effort to survive as a worker under capitalism.
In 2011, I developed a tic disorder, and my chronic pain and executive function issues became much worse. Had to stop working. After about ten years, which included a few diagnoses and some living situations that I'd prefer not to remember, I managed to win my Disability claim and start making some changes to my life.
The backpay was a significant (to me) sum of money. It was time to make the big purchases that would make my life better. In addition to mobility aids, properly sized furniture for my extremely tall body, various tools and supplies and the like, I decided to treat myself to a good camera. A Canon 90D digital SLR with a couple of kit lenses and a cheap manual telephoto. And then I had to buy better lenses, a nicer (and taller) tripod, extension tubes, a reverse ring mount, a star-tracker, some other stuff, and an adapter that allows me to attach my first ever lens, the manual one my mother bought me when I first started learning SLR photography in the early 1990s.
I know I will never see that much money again (the Disability backpay). But I bought something that can make me happy, for a hobby I have yearned for all my life, that I have moderate experience in many facets of. If that was the last time I could buy something expensive for myself, purely for my own pleasure, I made sure it would be something that I would enjoy for the rest of my life.
And sharing my photography is a way to share that joy.
I also have a soft spot for Creative Commons licensing. In one of my jobs, I was expected to find suitable high-resolution photographs to represent all sorts of businesses. Back then, the microstock photo sites were fairly new and didn't have as many options. And my budget for photos was pretty small. That's when I learned about the copyleft movements. We used a lot of Creative Commons Attribution photos when the businesses didn't send anything useful in, or anything at all. So, here's my way to give back. And maybe to repent a little for not realizing earlier in my employment with them how messed up and exploitative their business model was.
For more information about me and my free photo project, where I post, the licensing I use, and how to support me, visit linktr.ee/DoingItForTheExposure.
Western Gray Squirrel. Photo by Xer S. Rowan, Creative Commons Attribution license