Do you remember feeling like you used to love what you do because of that sort of understanding and the ability to observe it in the world around you?

Yes, as a programmer (for fun & profit) I sometimes do think that something could be solved/eased by programming. For example, I was filing a form at a branch office; data from that form would be entered by hand to be transferred to the main office. Reply to my question of why not add required software & network to do this was that status quo gives local branch more control; there is nobody hovering around.

In some other instances, I often think that installing a programming environment (& learning whichever programming language) would make life of otherwise non-programmers (or, "I am not a computer person"-people) much easier.

When I was involved in (amateur) photography, I was nearly always finding if a image would be better with this perspective or that angle; fully open aperture or 1-2 stops down, etc. Also, somebody's image could have improved by just a bit of editing (increase in contrast; cropping; etc).