A lot of friends are chill with it, and I don't mind doing a little bit of help, but sometimes people are who are OFFENDED when you don't want to help. In the same way a contractor friend won't remodel your home for free, I am not going to fix every single issue you have with your computer for free. I'm happy to give advice, but i'm not going to work for hours without pay to fix everything.

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[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 day ago

I was always really fortunate in that my family didn’t bother me too much with tech support requests - mostly because I didn’t really get into a technical career when I lived near them.

However, I did have the misfortune of becoming ‘the photographer.’ I always really loved photography, and when I could, I bought one of the first model DSLR’s. I shot mostly for myself. I’d sometimes do paid work, but generally, I just liked wandering around and getting pictures of things I thought were interesting. For about a 5-10 year period, I was just expected to be the photographer for every life event for everyone in my immediate family, and I found it really dehumanizing.
I was not Monument the friend, the brother, the son, the uncle, or whatever, but ‘the camera.’ I could not enjoy the experience of being at events, or even of taking pictures for myself unless I ‘forgot’ my camera at home, or flat out refused to take pictures for other people. I’ve had strangers interrupt me while shooting to take their picture - both with their camera (tourists, mostly) or with my own camera.
When my camera fell behind in technology, I more or less shelved it in favor of crappy cell phone pictures for documenting things, but I still sort of have bittersweet feelings about using a DSLR to make art. I feel like the expectation sort of ruined the joy of shooting for me.