It’s Not a Hobby If You Live for It.

When I was a kid, I loved drawing. My mom bought me sketchbooks and those colored pencil sets with dozens of colors, and I’m still grateful she supported me like that.

I also remember adults saying things like, “Music won’t make you money. Don’t aim to be a musician.”

I never want to say anything like that to my kids.
I’d never want to tell them, “Photographers don’t make money, so go to a proper school and find a stable job.”

Absolutely not.

But somewhere along the way, when we grow up, a lot of us stop following our own curiosity. We become adults who can’t even take action unless there’s a clear purpose or measurable goal.

If you’re reading this newsletter, I’m pretty sure you’re someone who still follows your curiosity in some way—someone who creates because they feel like creating.

You don’t need a purpose to follow what excites you.

“Because I want to.”

That’s enough. And I know you get that.

“If it’s not your job, it’s just a hobby.”

The other day, I posted this on Threads:

To be honest, the story was half-fiction.
But I had a feeling it would spark a lot of reactions—so I posted it anyway.

And as expected, it blew up. Right now, the post has over 190 comments.

The most common topic people brought up was whether I make money from photography. So many people said things like:

“If it’s not your job, it’s just a hobby.”

But people who say that are probably the same type who would have told Madonna—when she arrived in New York with just $35 in her pocket and worked part-time jobs while chasing her dream— “Your music is just a hobby.”

They’re probably the kind who would laugh at the Wright brothers—two men obsessed with the idea of flying—and say, “Cute hobby you’ve got there.”

But here’s the thing.

A hobby is “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.”

If you’re spending most of your day—or most of your week—devoting yourself to that passion, then it’s no longer a hobby.

Over these past two years, photography has been so much more than a hobby for me.

Weekdays, weekends—it didn’t matter. I went out to shoot every chance I got.
One time I even flew over 1,000 km to an island just to photograph a rocket launch.
I traveled to Taiwan to shoot, and the people I met there eventually led to my showing work at TAIWAN PHOTO months later.

When I was home, I was in my darkroom—developing film, making prints.
I showed my work in exhibitions almost every month, sold prints, released zines, and kept creating nonstop.

My photos weren’t only seen in Japan either.
They were featured in an Austrian newspaper.
DAZED published six full pages of my work.
My photos were even exhibited in a photography museum.

With this much passion behind what I do, I can’t possibly call photography a “hobby.”
That Threads post I shared the other day—that was the real message behind it.

Of course, doing photography as a hobby is totally fine.
But telling someone who’s giving everything they have—someone with real drive and curiosity—that what they’re doing is “just a hobby because it doesn’t make money”?

That’s wrong.
People said the same thing to Madonna. To the Wright brothers.
We know how that turned out.

Honestly, I think we should be encouraging people who follow their curiosity despite not making money from it.
That kind of passion is something we should celebrate, not dismiss.

And I want people who pour their hearts into photography to be rewarded—even just a little.

That’s why I started FAR EAST DARKROOM.

I would never call his passion a hobby.

Min Seonhong is a photographer from South Korea.
Ever since he fell in love with Tokyo, he’s been visiting almost every month.
In just the past year or two, he’s come to Tokyo nearly 30 times.

And he’s now created his very first zine, BLIPS VOL.01.
At 88 pages, it’s so beautifully made that calling it a “zine” almost feels insufficient—it's practically a full-fledged book.

I would never call his passion a hobby.
This is a real artistic practice, and he is a true artist.

And to make sure that passion of his never burns out, I wanted to support him in any way I could. So FAR EAST DARKROOM is now carrying BLIPS VOL.01.
If you’d like to support his work, please check out the zine at the link below.

BLIPS VOL.01 - Min Seonhong →

That’s it for this week’s edition.

Thank you for reading. See you next week.

🦖 Come hang out with me on Instagram → @_nuts.tokyo_

🪐 New videos on zines & photography up on YouTube

🧃 Curious about Japanese and Asian zines? Visit FAR EAST DARKROOM.