Photography - Hobby or Career?

I occasionally join in with Tell The Truth Thursday over at The Redhead Riter's blog.

Today's question is: Do you have a hobby?

I immediately thought of this blog, because, although I occasionally do my photography professionally, it mostly started out as a hobby and I still often go out and take photos merely because I enjoy capturing the perfect picture.

What separates my photography from being a hobby or from being a career? I suppose it would be whether or not I make any money from it. Some people asume that if you call something a hobby, then you are not as good at it as a professional would be, but I have found that is not always true. Some photographers who do photography as merely a hobby are far better than some of the best professional photographers. And I have seen some professional photographers whose work is only average at best.

I think, the reason it is difficult for me to separate the words "hobby" and "career" from one another as I have been striving to combine the two. I really intend to make a living someday out of doing the things I love.

The things I love to do:

1. spending time with my kids
2. writing (mostly on my novel)
3. writing children's stories
4. designing
5. photography
6. create fairy images (although my husband is better at it)
7. crafting (for and with my kids)
8. fitness (lots of walking and hiking)
9. Anything to do with cats

Things I want to learn:
1. drawing/illustrating
2. knitting
3. sewing
4. playing the guitar

and a myriad of other things!

Learning to draw is something that actually pertains to my writing. I have written three children's stories and really want to be able to illustrate them myself. I wrote them for three of my children, and I just think it would be an even more special gift to them if the stories were illustrated by me (or their dad) too. And I have very definite ideas in my head of how I want the illustrations to look. I am just not very good at actually converting those pictures in my mind into drawings. I am also running out of time because my children are getting older and the stories were written for young children. I think one of the reasons I turned to photography as a hobby is because of my inability to draw. What I couldn't capture with pen to paper, I was able to capture through the camera lens.

I am told that learning to knit is quite easy. I am also told that, once you know how to knit, you can quite easily sit down and knit while watching tv or doing something else that doesn't require the use of your hands. I love the idea of being productive during my "down time," of being able to just vegetate in front of the tv and still get something useful made! Of course, it is not something I would be able to do while taking photographs!

I once signed up for a class on guitar playing. It was called "classical guitar for beginners." I was terrible at it! I found out that the class was for people who already played a little guitar and wanted to learn to play classical guitar for the first time, not for people like me who had never played any guitar. Unfortunately, I never got around to signing up for truly beginner's guitar lessons. Oh well, at least my children, years later, got some use out of my guitar and learned quite a bit about how to play! This desire to learn to play guitar, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with my photography endeavors.

The reason I want to learn to sew is quite simple. I am a mom to seven children. It would save me a lot of money if I could mend their clothing when small things need mending, and I would also love to make them new things. Not to mention, if I could sew, it could potentially help me design some props for photography shoots.

What are your hobbies? What new things would you like to learn?