Probably old, but why do you like photography?

[molested_cow]

I guess this is sorta my response to the other thread about photography being cruel in certain ways, but I thought this could be another thread altogether.

When I just started photography, I was excited because it allows me to capture interesting compositions.

Then later, it helped me appreciate my surrounding more, making the world seem a much better place than I thought.

So I just realised, that photography makes me feel that I have an extra power--- the power to allow others to see through my eye.


So what's your love in photography?

 

[danalec99]

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...0&postorder=asc&highlight=photography&start=0

 

[hobbes28]

Capturing emotions. When you can see someone smiling in a picture from twenty years ago and still bring a smile to your face. When you can feel the sadness in someone's face.

That's why I do and will continue to do photography.

 

[StvShoop]

Then later, it helped me appreciate my surrounding more, making the world seem a much better place than I thought.

i'm feeling that too

also, i think i do it mostly because i think i'm good at it, and i enjoy working at it, becoming more skilled. is it just me, or are those very dubious reasons? i like something because i'm good at it... bah.
i enjoy it too, but that seems secondary much of the time, and i don't always realize it.
sometimes, i even feel that the bias to promote visual things over other things is overrated!

 

[malachite]

It's taken years for me to get away from all the technical crap and just enjoy the moment. I shoot for the experience as a whole. A great image for me is one that meets all the technical mumbo jumbo but takes me back to the whole time I was wherever. The trip there, what else did I see, was it hot, cold, perfect, good beer, bad beer. I've got pictures that me laugh, not because of the image itself but because of the situation.

The first images of my little windmill project I'm doing right now makes me laugh because the place wreaked really bad of manure. Where there's a windmill, there's water. And if there's water, there's cows. This time however it was really bad and there was no breeze. And I was there for hours :shock: I can still smell it when I look at those slides........

I've got some light painting images that are ruined because some animal scared the crap out of me. A night time sky, star trails forming, a perfectly painted sagauro skeleton, and a faint streak of orange light going all the way across the foreground because some mule deer stumbled onto me or a bat decided to see what my hair tastes like. Just imagine being attacked by a bee or something in public, swattin' all over the place. Then imagine what the people across the street see. Some freak waving their arms all over for no reason at all at an intersection. Make it night time and put a flash light in one hand and imagine it all over again. Makes me laugh anyway.

I get out and shoot with Voodoocat every now and then. Shooting with someone else is a new thing for me. Having to edit each other out of some shots has made me better at Photoshop

Memorize the rules and the basics. Practice until they become instinct. Then relax and let your conscious mind get some work done without thinking about DOF all the time or the rule of thirds.

Now granted I do carry a tailors tape (sewing tape measure) with me for up close and personal hyperfocal work. A bubble level for shooting at night as no matter how bright the moon is, compositions are easliy misaligned. All the gadgets in the world won't make a better photograph and only clutter your mind anyway. Flush out of your head everything about grain, megapixels, number of lens elements, frames per second, and whatever else you read about the day before. Just stop and smell the roses, look around at the world and say "Hi"..................

A thousand and one cliche' sayings come to mind. Enjoy the moment; Don't worry, be happy; Just do it....... bla bla bla........

Learn it, memorize it, and then forget it.

Why do I take pictures? I didn't really have anything else to do today...............

 

[ksmattfish]

For me it is the perfect combination of art, craft, gear, and activity. It fulfills my creative urges. I enjoy printing by hand in the darkroom. I love fiddling with all the old cameras, and even the new fangled models. I enjoy wandering the countryside, and it's not too hard to drag some camera gear along.

 

[Alison]

I love the challenge. Also, I have a family full of artists that can draw, paint, etc and I just didn't get it. It wasn't until my high school years when I took a photography course that I realized this was my medium. I really enjoy capturing people as they really are, not posed for the camera. So, I bring my camera with me and get them when they are relaxed and don't even know I am there. It's truly an honor to be weclomed into someone's home and help them creat their memories. These are the pictures they are going to look at with their children and grandchildren. It's a pretty powerful feeling!

 

[BernieSC]

The camera is the greatest invention next to the electric light.

 

[Youngun]

I don't...




8)

 

[malachite]

The camera is the greatest invention next to the electric light.

and The Clapper

 

[Vestal]

StvShoop, I'm with you. I'm pouring all my energy into photography, not because it's my first love but simply because it's the art that everyone agrees I have natural talent in and therefore, more of a chance I think to make a living at it. I do really enjoy it, but I also feel sometimes that to put too much emphasis on a particular art form is not just limiting, but neurotic. But then, that's civilized behavior for you, specialization IS neurotic.

I would prefer to be a complete artist with no predictable creative outlet. Paint in the morning, compose in the afternoon, take pictures before dinner, draw by candlelight, pass out, wake up, do something completely different. Sigh. Oh well.

 

[StvShoop]

I would prefer to be a complete artist with no predictable creative outlet. Paint in the morning, compose in the afternoon, take pictures before dinner, draw by candlelight, pass out, wake up, do something completely different. Sigh. Oh well.

yeah, definitely. it's a double sided sword... overspecialization can leave you broken if the rest of the world decides your specialty isn't worthwhile, and if you underspecialize you might never get anything done :?

photography seems to be in a pretty good place though. if you want, you can move more into a post-production/painting/graphic design area... or the other direction, the setup of the photo, environmental design (architecture), modeling, acting. most of my work recently seems to be between doing the camera stuff in the field, and making that stuff into a "painting" for lack of another word.
it seems to me that if you hang out near the edge of "true" photography, you can get the benefit of both worlds and not feel trapped in one medium.

 

[mentos_007]

For me photography is a perfect activity to relax... I take photos to have some time for myself, when I don't want to see anyone else, when I don't want to spend time wuth my friends and collegues or even family. But it is also the way I see world. I want to develop my imagination, my creativity. Taking photos is sometimes funny, sometimes sad... and this variety of moods (also mine) makes me love photography. By it, you can show the world as it is in reality, without any additives (in photoshop f.e) that I don't like and use, you can show that sometimes poverty can be beautiful and wealthyness *spelling??* awful.

 

[Walt]

I can't draw!!!

 

[Scott WRG Editor]

Primarily I like the memory triggers that photography brings with looking at pictures. When I look at a picture I took I can sort of relive the emotions of the moment. I like that.