Not a Whodunit but Whydoit ?

Whether freezing cold or dripping hot, rain, snow or otherwise, I have to do it because it is my livelihood. If I decided not to do it (at least as a money-making endeavour), I guess all my clients would go somewhere else and I’d be out of business. I went through chemotherapy treatment last year and I still continued to do it - not going to let that stop me! 26 years as a full-time commercial photographer and counting, I’m hoping for a couple more years in the business. I may continue to do it part-time in one form or another, but that remains to be seen.

Personal work-wise, I always try to do something every day, even if it’s just flowers in the backyard or a quick photo of my loving wife reading on the porch. ‘Doing my scales’, as it were. We’re going to be retiring to our Canadian property in about two years (and surely that time will fly by, as it already is!), so we’ve been spending more and more time up there. As a result, I’ve been using photography as means to better acquaint myself with our property and the surroundings, and hopefully the people. Plus the ‘Mapping the West’ project which I’m only able to do when time and money allows is still very much on the table.

So why do it? I don’t think it’s because of a ‘love’ or ‘enjoyment’ of photography - I don’t really think of photography quite that way, sorry to say. I think it’s more that it’s something that I have to do, in one form or another, day after day. It’s a ‘working-through’ (even the commercial stuff), and I still have lots and lots to ‘work through’. Like breathing, it’s just part of my existence.
 
I agree with Vince; it's like breathing. I've been doing photography for 60 years, since I was 10. It just becomes part of your self-definition, a way of life. I may not be shooting all the time, or every day, but there's always a camera nearby, and I'm always looking at the world in terms of potential photographs. Now, I don't know that I've answered the "Why?", but tens of thousands of years ago, our ancestors were leaving their drawings and handprints on cave walls for the future, so perhaps, in the same way, I'm saying, "I was here. I saw this, found it beautiful, felt love for it. I want you to know that."
 
The older I get the harder it seems to answer that. At least in the sense of the big existential WHY!? I've stopped asking.

As long as I'm able, I'd like to stay engaged with the creative process and maybe on occasion create something beautiful or otherwise compelling. That feels sufficient to me.

John
 
Why, oh why do I do it? Why? I don't make any money doing it (actually, I'm not allowed to unless I want to give up my disability pension). When the G.A.S. hits it puts a hole in the budget. People look at me like I'm some kind of freak if I'm using a (GASP!) film camera. It costs way too much to cover the travel expenses. It takes a lot of time to do post with the antiquated system I have.

So, you ask "Why do I do it?" Why do I still go out and take photos? Well, despite all the drawbacks, it's just something I like to do to keep my mind going in the right direction. When I'm scouting a location for the best angle or waiting for a cloud to get the heck out of in front of the sun or making sure I've captured the scene correctly, it keeps my thoughts from straying to the pile of issues that sometimes get in the way of doing photography. It doesn't do anything for my sanity (I had to abandon that when I went into the submarine service fifty years ago), but it does help my nerves.

And I'll keep doing it till I can no longer lift a camera.

PF
 
Another reason is "The importance of the unimportant." I take great pleasure in playing with these wonderful and intricate toys which I can use to sometimes get a good photo. Stalking the wily snipe.
 
Ahh...! Now if we're gonna get philosophical, it goes a little deeper than the weather and medical conditions. "Why?" is perplexing to me. Doesn't compute with my small brain. The "why" of photography is like asking me why I breathe. It's part of me. It's a process that I can't live without. It's developed over the decades and I'm pretty good at it today. But even when I was a newbie and trying to figure out how to take a decent picture, I felt it was something special, a balm for my soul. Even when the prints only ended up in the trash can or, today, when the images end up victims of the "delete" button, I felt/still feel a sense of fulfillment. Gotta do it. Like breathing.
 
I do it because putting a frame around things just does it for me and the challenge of always trying to find a new way to frame something does not get old for me. It has also helped my mental health too. getting out, walking and feeling like there is a purpose. It just keeps getting more interesting for me. I am hooked.
 
helenhill said:
but the Real Question is Not a Whodunit but Why do it ?
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I can answer only for myself but there is only one reason:

I personally want to go photograph today.
NOT because I have a personal expectation to do so because I traditionally do so.
NOT because others expect me to do so.
NOT because I have driven 600 miles to get here or traveled great distance
NOT because I have this camera equipment.

I have come to acknowledge that when I did so because of some sense of obligation that there was seldom any usable results and I really did not have the best time.
 
Dogman said:
Ahh...! Now if we're gonna get philosophical, it goes a little deeper than the weather and medical conditions. "Why?" is perplexing to me. Doesn't compute with my small brain. The "why" of photography is like asking me why I breathe. It's part of me. It's a process that I can't live without. It's developed over the decades and I'm pretty good at it today. But even when I was a newbie and trying to figure out how to take a decent picture, I felt it was something special, a balm for my soul. Even when the prints only ended up in the trash can or, today, when the images end up victims of the "delete" button, I felt/still feel a sense of fulfillment. Gotta do it. Like breathing.
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Age and infirmity vary from person to person. Some walk, some run, some roll in wheelchairs. Some have heart conditions, some do not. Some have joint issues, some do not. It cannot be assumed that age and infirmity are a constant and that all are affected equally.

There is a fellow on Flickr with Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, who photographs, but not much anymore.
 
boojum said:
There is a fellow on Flickr with Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, who photographs, but not much anymore.
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There is a wonderfully talented photographer here on RFF Colton Allen Swift1 (http://www.coltonallen.com/about/) with ALS that takes amazing photographs. I wonder if that’s the fellow you were referring to. I haven’t seen him posting much since the redesign and hope he’s ok.
 
raydm6 said:
There is a wonderfully talented photographer here on RFF Colton Allen Swift1 (http://www.coltonallen.com/about/) with ALS that takes amazing photographs. I wonder if that’s the fellow you were referring to. I haven’t seen him posting much since the redesign and hope he’s ok.
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It is Colton Allen of whom I am speaking and he has some wonderful stuff on Flickr. Works with old film cameras.
 
I take my M9-P and 28 Summaron M on my morning walks by the river almost always, even when I’m unwell of late. Indeed especially because I’ve been unwell. But often I don’t take a picture. Or, because of the Leica, I get a lousy picture, better taken with the iPhone. Not many rolls of film used lately, but my first roll of Kodak Image Pro 100 out of the Leica II was dropped off for development yesterday. Early in the year when I was well I was walking along the kerb of the little roadway to the rowing sheds, an exercise to improve balance and recruit gluteal and other muscles neglected in office work, when a tribe of teenage girl rowers with smiles and laughter and almost taunting challenges, enveloped my path on both sides of the kerb, brushed past me, and were gone. I had the camera with me but was unprepared. The boys eventually met my preparedness last week. Just to create opportunity I sometimes don’t take the camera. And of course, when it’s obviously a schoolgirls’ morning, or any of the young ones really, and particularly if I have the camera, I turn back for home well before the boat shed forecourt and the boat landing.

U28906.1733991060.0.jpg
 
What would you rather do? Do you have a more fascinating alternative?

Colton Allen photographed until he could no longer breathe. Search his RFF images if you’re feeling low.

Fatigue and depression are understandable, and mostly treatable; weather passes.

I’ve had a year of illness which cramped my ability to get out on my own, but Linn would drive me where the vistas or people were, and I’d shoot from the passenger window. Later with a walker, then a cane, I regained more control of what and where I could shoot.

When I grew bored with the clunky hospital walker, I bought a nimbler red one; when using a cane irritated me, I bought a sword cane simply to feel boyish pleasure. Find little joys while big joy is out of reach.

For much of this year, too, I’ve been reorganizing and redeveloping images—lightening, darkening, clarifying what I want to see in them at age 72.

Yesterday a Nikon S2 arrived, as well as an TTArtisan meter and 5 rolls of Ektar, so I’ll be heading out. Happy holidays y’all.
 
Yesterday, on my way to the pharmacy to give them well over $100 for some of the pills I am told I need to take, I noticed the light on the front of a bank. It was just a modern design building, one that is easy to knock down and replace with another structure of impermanence. But the way the light fell upon it, the diagonal wire in front and vertical utility poles in the background and the overcast sky above...even the nondescript SUV parked in front like another piece of our disposable generic culture.... Well, it was all just a moment. And a particularly pleasant moment for my eyes. So I decided to hang onto it for a little while longer.

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Richard G said:
I take my M9-P and 28 Summaron M on my morning walks by the river almost always, even when I’m unwell of late. Indeed especially because I’ve been unwell. But often I don’t take a picture. Or, because of the Leica, I get a lousy picture, better taken with the iPhone. Not many rolls of film used lately, but my first roll of Kodak Image Pro 100 out of the Leica II was dropped off for development yesterday. Early in the year when I was well I was walking along the kerb of the little roadway to the rowing sheds, an exercise to improve balance and recruit gluteal and other muscles neglected in office work, when a tribe of teenage girl rowers with smiles and laughter and almost taunting challenges, enveloped my path on both sides of the kerb, brushed past me, and were gone. I had the camera with me but was unprepared. The boys eventually met my preparedness last week. Just to create opportunity I sometimes don’t take the camera. And of course, when it’s obviously a schoolgirls’ morning, or any of the young ones really, and particularly if I have the camera, I turn back for home well before the boat shed forecourt and the boat landing.

U28906.1733991060.0.jpg
Click to expand...
Ah, all those handsome youngsters! I remember those days! :love: Sad to no longer be one of them. :cry:

Why do it? I take a camera along on most every walk because I enjoy making photographs. I especially enjoy making photographs of the same subjects over and over through the seasons and the years, a record of My Time passing and of Change in the world. Without Change, without Time, there is no Life.

Whether such things might be of interest to others, well, that's for them to decide. I enjoy the hectic collisions of shapes and light, shadows and forms, the occasional face and smile, the energy of children and the young. What people do with their homes and gardens over the year, the decoration for holidays and events, the dash of a dog or squirrel, the daily majesty of a sunset or moonrise.

A camera helps me see Time and reminds me of the manifold joy that is Life. We get too small a speck of it, why not enjoy it, celebrate it?

G
 
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