Someone asked me today why I take photographs?

I photograph to document life around me as it happens. I have recently taken portraits of family and friends, only to see them change forever in a matter of weeks.
 
Keith said:
...The only real answer I could give him was something attributed to Gary Winogrand that he supposedly said when asked a similar question:

"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."...
Click to expand...
Keith, a couple of years ago I criticized that statement of Winogrand's as being "shallow," here on RFF I believe, and someone (was it you?) asked me why I thought so. Seeing it now hasn't made me feel that it has aged well. Now, don't get me wrong, for anyone who feels that way, this statement is fine as a raison d'être for photographing. For me, however, it isn't meaningful for the simple reason that I feel, after you've photographed for some years, you get reasonably good at visualization, in the Ansel Adams sense as stated in he is series of four books on photography. That is to say, after a while you essentially know how the subject will look in the photograph, like the story about HCB in his old age, when he wasn't carrying a camera, holding up his hands to his eye and clicking an imaginary shutter and saying something like, That's a good photograph.

i think I photograph because I like how the print looks, both B&W in terms of tones and color in terms of color. It's as simple as that. Many years ago I spent a couple years drawing and painting intensively, but then got too busy with work and a career to continue. Had I continued, I would prefer to draw and paint, but I would still photograph. An added reason is that I like to do something creative and to try to do something original. But if I continue writing in this vein, I'll be talking a better game than my photography.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Chiang Tung Days [direct download link for pdf file for book project]
 
In truth I don't really know. If I were to over analyse it I might not be able to come up with a convincing answer. I enjoy the process and looking at the results and that is all the meaning I need.
 
Don't really have a neat, tidy, or even complete answer, but the curiousity of creating, as well as the preservation of something noteworthy, beautiful, or even something I can't fully comprehend, figure among the reasons I photograph. Its an intuitive act, and one I suspect I may never understand fully, nor probably ever care to understand fully. Reading why other people do, I always find interesting, but then I often have a curiousity about why people do what they do also.

I have a lot of sympathy with the Winogrand quote, and think most of our actions in life are probably attempts or questions to understand something better. Why create ? That's a question you could spend a lifetime seeking an answer to, and suspect we have been trying to answer for a long time.

Should I ever need a neat answer to answer someone why I photograph, or create anything, I think it would probably be easiest to simply turn the question on them, and ask them why they do something they like.
 
Ive said this before, but I photograph because I need something to do while out walking, also as I attempt to quit smoking, need something to occupy my hands.
😉
half kidding...
 
I love looking at the world around me through a lens and I also love framing that world inside the viewfinder...
I love seeing in B&W and in color...I love great light...I love holding and using cameras...
 
Keith said:
I have a friend named Mick who has a lot of problems ... he suffers from quite severe depression and has been battling drug addiction his entire adult life ... but he's a lovely guy and I have a lot of time for him. He's in his mid fifties now and has a face that is a proverbial road map of a life of substance abuse and hard living.

I asked him today if I can photograph him in a specific location some time next week. He has no problem with the idea but did ask me why I would want to do this ... and why I actually take photos in the first place? The only real answer I could give him was something attributed to Gary Winogrand that he supposedly said when asked a similar question:

"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."

Mick was pretty happy with that answer and I have to say for me it fits ... how about you?
Click to expand...

Winogrand's quote has always worked for me. Sometimes I change it a bit to "I like to endulge myself in unadulterated seeing".
 
photographs record the moments of times in my life as a sort of diary so even though they dont make sense to others, they hold important values to me. And while doing it, like writing, i try to improve the content/technical quality at the same time.
 
Thardy said:
For documentation, memories and sharing experiences .
Click to expand...

Very succintly put. Covers most of my reasons, but there are times when I think something just look too good not to photograph and print (not that I get around to that much printing any more).
 
Mainly because of the fact that I notice and experience a lot more of the world when I carry a camera. Out of the bag, around my neck that is . carrying the camera in the bag (which I almost always do) makes no difference; it has to be in my hands or around my neck.

I can walk for an hour in my home town and not notice a damn thing. There would have to be a bomb blast or a meteor impact for me to notice anything. If I carry a camera it is a totally different story - I see and enjoy a lot of what is going on around me - should I be fortunate enough to find a few motives and get a keeper or two home with me, it is just an extra bonus.
 
Think the major motivation for me it is a creative outlet. Feel I need one and photography pushes the buttons. Also it takes me places I wouldn't go otherwise. Have been doing a series on places I have never been in my hometown. Is amazing how many things I have seen and done now. None of which I would likely do without a camera in hand. Also it fits very well with another passion of mine which is riding my motor bike. Cam and tripod in my panniers, destination at on Google maps and I am away.
 
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