Are you obsessed with the technology only?

I'm not overly after the latest & greatest (my newest camera is an A7ii) but I find it hard to resist the vintage models.
Quite limited technology in my pre war cameras, but I do find the mechanical technology of many SLRs & rangefinder fascinating & I am fairly interested in Optics.
It is often a nice challenge to try & get decent images with older kit. Sometimes the limitations of older gear will show through (such as a 1.3MP camera) but often it just forces you to do more.
I freely admit to being obsessed by photography, but it's not just the technology :)

@AlainCh2 That´s okay, I did read it through. You definitely reminded me of my own path. But it is somehow indifferent and dark. If I was thinking about it that way, I would definitely drop all hobbies that way. Ot least that is my impression from the reading. I know the path is the goal. And better camera will not make me happy. Happier yes, but just a little step. Not happy. Not worth it. And so it must be in the action and connection.

Last months were harsh, and in the name of business, I sold almost everything of value, including hobbies items and gadgets.
Now it turns around, and M6 II dropped in my hands from out of nowhere (yes I paid for it). Things are so unstable.

The PC though. Had that 12Core beast for a moment. Well, it just worked as it worked with 8 cores. Then jumped on 8C 16Gigs laptop, because I don´t need no performance anymode, do I? Well, Lightrom with AI features proved me otherwise. Dangit!

Canon EOS M6 with all this new SW can get me 2-6 stops better image quality than before. Is it enough? No, it isn´t because FF will give you 1-2 stops on top of that. Shiiit! And then what. I go shoot shitty content noone wants to see anyways. It´s a circular misery at this point.

So, back to shooting. What, when, why...

I am pretty aware of that. But I have hard time understanding how "I suck" actually leads to the right path and positive change. Some people rather resent.
The motivation always was for me this sure path of "I know what to do, but I don´t want to do it, because I am lazy. Let´s go do that".
With photography, I don´t know the path anymore. As with some other hard life things, I might just start doing that unconditionally.

My facetious tone aside, I think we're in agreement - you need to answer the "why" question first. After that things will fall into place.

And if you need more proof of why gear doesn't matter, here is a simple objective test: go to to any image hosting website that curates photos. Find 10 photos you like. Dig a little deeper and you can probably find what camera and lens was used to take the shot (or at the least, what the photographer generally shoots with), and I'm willing to bet there won't be a duplicate camera on your list of 10...

Camera companies want to sell you new gear, and part of that process is convicing you that what you currently own is obsolete. It's simply not true, so stop allowing yourself to be manipulated so easily.

For me (and I've done this as a hobby and professionally for many years) the 3 best ways to increase the art in your photography is:

1. Image, Image, and Image again
2. visit art galleries (especially the Weston Gallery)
3. Read about the imagers from the middle 1850's through today. Understand that the technical powers of a camera make taking any image easier but not better from an esthetical or documentary aspect. Marketing of photography goods tries to tell you that equipment will (perhaps the first fully AI driven camera that does not need a human might take both good technical and artistic images:))

"I suck" doesn't help. "This needs to be different in this way" does. And that will come if you listen to your work.

Those two statements resonate with me. When I was actively going out to photograph public events, that was my 'work'. I was using relatively lighter APSC setup. I got enthusiastic and bought a FF DSLR. Then COVID hit. For all reasons, my hobby 'work' slowed down.

Most importantly, the FF DSLR and associated lenses were getting heavy for me, and I was less motivated to take them in situations where I used to take the APSC kit happily. As COVID slowed down, I was covering fewer events. The FF DSLR kit was becoming a physical burden and also more of a mental burden.

I could not 'keep working' as before.

I switched to m43... this was my 'motivational' spending spree over the last year. The obsession, or addiction. I made my last purchase yesterday (or I'd like to think so). I am now happy going around covering more events with the lighter m43 gear. The m43 100-400mm allows me to photograph suburban wildlife for which I never had a suitable lens in my DSLR kit.

I am not aiming for an exhibition in the traditional sense. My photos are used by the dance schools and other organizations I 'work' (unpaid) for. They use those photos on their sites, communications and social media. I am happy.

Oh, man. If offered an exhibition I would refuse. That's the last thing on my list of desires.

I find exhibitions, and the printing, matting, hanging, curating, sequencing, lighting, and hanging issues that need to be dealt with, quite satisfying.

What about exhibitions in your past has been unpleasant? They are a lot of work.

blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/opening-reception-at-monterey-museum-of-art/

I stand by my answer - if you don't know why you're doing something then you aren't able to answer the technical questions.

This was the salient question in the first post: "How do you get yourself to produce something, to avoid the GAS and spending guilt?"

Examining your motivation comes before an honest critical evaluation of your images/portfolio and certainly before gear.

Start with why does it feel important to take photos? Who are they for?

Most of what my work tells me when I'm starting a series isn't technical at all. I haven't spent much time examining my motivation to make images. In fact, I don't know why I make images as opposed to something else to commit myself to. Been doing it seriously for almost 70 years, so at this point it probably doesn't matter.

As to the spending guilt, at some point in the 1980s I told myself that I wouldn't worry about how much I spent on photography. That is about the only thing in my life other than my family that I've said that about.

If I get stuck, I just work harder and more assiduously.

Fair enough. But you're also not trying to cure an existential crisis by constantly buying gear, as the OP is.

Btw, the OP also never said his images were bad, just that he was unhappy and unmotivated.

He's also quite literally asking if taking pictures of mushrooms will somehow fix things - my answer would be uh, no, but walking in the woods with no purpose other than to clear your mind might...

If the OP is making great images that are meaningful to him and it's not satisfying, then I can't help. But I've found that a narrow project scope and working every day means that eventually you'll get satisfying images.

By the way, there is a phase in photo projects that I encounter that used to depress the heck out of me. After working for a year or so, I usually find that the images I was making at the beginning of the series, the ones that motivated me to keep at the series, no longer look good to me. I used to think I'd wasted a year, but now I know that that year was preparation for making the images that the series is now about.

-Compliments on an excellent topic -
NO, I am the opposite, don’t care about gear. (This is long so if you don’t like to read, just look at the bad pictures I took this morning). I learned to operate a camera because I wanted to take photos, nothing more. I have little trouble with gear lust. I use an M43 camera, no tripod, no flash, a few lenses of reasonably good quality. I did a good bit of travel over my first decade of photography, covered most of the national parks in the US and Canada, some overseas travel. Taking interesting photos in iconic settings was easy and fun. My real challenge came later when I was stuck at home in the least photographic state in the US, limited by health issues, and had to generate my own fun. Then I ended up with a similar problem to what you describe - creating new channels for producing images that pleased me, since I was my primary customer.

That challenge lead to my greatest success, and my next set of frustrations. I found a project that I was deeply engaged in, made a trove of interesting and original images, won an endowment to fund gallery exhibitions for it, got public attention that I had never foreseen. I worked it for about 5 years, then as all projects do, it began to wrap itself up. Now I am project-less and suffering from some of the same symptoms you describe minus the gear-lust. I have adopted your (a) helping others - I teach a few classes for beginning photographers, mentor a high school student and (c) looking for inspiration and new projects. Following up a successful project is harder than I expected and my muse has vanished. (b) is irrelevant for me.

So, I take pictures. Of lots of stuff. My grandson’s little league games. My forest acreage. The doorknobs in my old house. The fishing pier down the road. The pelicans who winter on the lake. A nearby hikeable swamp. My dog. The dead Easter lily on my table. I haven’t found a new project yet. But I can’t bear the gray feeling of just looking at the camera stuff sitting there, and deciding “no, I can’t think of anything to do so I’ll just stay here”. I go do something. This morning I went out and took some pictures that are mostly worthless (see below), but they kept photography alive another day for me while I await the return of my muse.

There's usually some geese or pelicans here but today nobody was home so sunrise was kinda boring. Will need some color correction etc. if I keep it

So I went to my favorite pier. Oops, closed, and a hideous array of tilted equipment blocking it. Settings error meant my sunstar didn't work ☹️

On to another spot. Usually there's blue herons or an alligator around here. Today nothing but buzzards. OK.

I drop by the dam because the dam birds were my Grand Project and I still love them. Tested out the new LR noise feature, it helps some but I need to practice.

You have asked a question that will have as many answers, some times contradictory, as there are people that read this thread.

I love tech. All kinds of tech. Enough to do IT stuff to pay the bills.

I love photography, even though I did none for many years. Colours, textures, the juxtaposition of things, little things in odd places.

I do not obsess over tech I cannot afford.

I carry a camera with me whenever I hike, camp etc. just in case I see something that intrigues me.

This little bit of orange beckoned me to take pictures, so I did.

Will you enjoy walking in the woods taking pictures of mushrooms? Maybe. Give it a try. If not try something else.

I agree with Jim Klasson that if you are motivated to take pictures, but they do not satisfy you, do ask yourself why. Find pictures that do satisfy you and also ask yourself why. The answers and the motivation to do better will both be unique to you.

It sounds to me like you have things sorted out in your head, even if you haven't necessarily formalized it to the point where you can articulate it (not that I'm suggesting you should), and I think that's a good place to work from.

I also appreciate and agree with the point about progress, not at the expense of previous work, but because of it.

Two things. First, I take my pictures for me, my family or, when hired, for clients (weddings, reunions, whatever). They are not for others and would be largely meaningless to others.

Second, I've been to many exhibitions and have never been anything but severely disappointed. I don't get much from looking at photography done by others in 99% of cases. I don't even browse galleries on-line because they're usually meaningless to me. So I kind of don't get the point of exhibitions.