The Importance of Passion in Photography

[Lilserenity]

I'd agree that there needs to be passion to succeed at photography to a degree but I'm inclined to say that a greater passion for the subjects you want to photograph is more important.

I might be different but photography as a blunt, cold, cog whirring or binary writing tool was not the reason I got into it, the reason I got into it is that there are moments in life I want to capture, I sometimes do that in words, sometimes I want to do it as a picture. It's the subject that I have passion for -- be that the natural landscape (e.g South Downs, Lake District), the urban environment (e.g my current Milton Keynes project, a new town that I have a great deal of passion and enthusiasm for) or people -- I'm a gregacious person so people say and I could talk the hind legs off a herd of donkeys too, so I'm also very passionate about people.

Photography is a way for me to express and capture the passion I have for my subject. It can become meditative for me, particularly landscape -- where I can sit and watch what I love, the world and the hills whistle with winds, the rivers wind and burble and 'snap' I get that moment that I am feeling.

If someone said to me, go photograph a sports event I'd probably go, "Rather not" -- I'm not interested in sports, I don't have a great deal of passion for any sport (bar some fleeting interest in the World Cup if I'm down the pub and everyone is watching a match) -- it leaves me cold, as does other photographic pursuits (e.g. I'm not overy keen on still life, life is a very fluid thing for me and composing something like a still life is against everything I feel emoted by.)

If you have that connection with your subject, be it long term or fleeting for a split second's worth of interest; then that connection and passion for that subject should shine through in the photos you take, otherwise it's all a bit cold and second hand, almost like looking at the world through misty goggles rather than wide and bright eyes open.

To some degree, the camera, lens, film, paper etc., they're all things that I am using with a degree of passion (e.g. I love my Leica to bits) but the greater passion is for the subject and I have to have some degree of interest and enthusiasm in photography to do that subject justice.

Vicky

 

[David R Munson]

Thank you for your responses, everyone. I should try to clarify something, though. What I am curious about is the role passion has played in your life, with your photography. Has it helped you? How so? What shape does it take? How does it direct your activities? I am curious about how it functions in your pursuit of photography.

Indeed, passion is a very personal thing. I am curious about the parallels in the ways it many function in our lives as well as the lives of our contemporaries.

 

[amateriat]

David: The answer is simple and complex at once. It guides so much of my existence, but hardly in a a loudly orchestrated way. And, curiously enough, my involvement in photography was, at the very least, close to the forefront in this "transformation" of sorts. It's been a path of creativity, both in process and result, from my late teens up to now. And it doesn't make too much sense, to me, to break it down into too much minutiae. But it's done much for me.

Vic: Passion isn't necessarily one's enemy, if you come to know it and understand it. We are most enthralled (I use that word in its strictest sense) by things we either don't understand or willfully refuse to acknowledge, IMO.


- Barrett

 

[Chris101]

Thank you for your responses, everyone. I should try to clarify something, though. What I am curious about is the role passion has played in your life, with your photography. Has it helped you? How so? What shape does it take? How does it direct your activities? I am curious about how it functions in your pursuit of photography.

Indeed, passion is a very personal thing. I am curious about the parallels in the ways it many function in our lives as well as the lives of our contemporaries.

David,

Thanks for posting this. What are you looking for in the responses to this thread? By passion, do you mean like when you fall deeply in - or out - of love?, or the kind when you give a large (to you) sum of money to a cause you believe in (giving time is ok, but money gets right to the core, eh?) Or is it more like when you work hard to get into position, assure the best exposure, aim and focus exactly, and then hit the button at exactly the right instant. Then (using however much technology you would like) print, matte and frame the picture. Exhibit it, have strangers take notice of it. Believe that you have spoken to the world with something you have done. Amazing - do it again. And again. And ...

That kind of passion?

ps, I looked at your Flickr, and the recycle arrow in pop-tops was easily my favorite! You are very good at illustration and metaphor.

 

[David R Munson]

I guess what I mean by passion may also be characterized as drive. My passion for photography drives me. It gets me out of bed, it gets me through a job I dislike, it gives me the energy to keep doing it no matter how poorly things are going. It gave me the drive to keep making photographs after a total creative burnout. To be quite frank, my passion for photography got me through depression severe enough that without photography I might not be here today.

One can be really, really into photography and find it greatly entertaining and even enriching, but not be passionate about it. Passion is something else, comes from deeper and is harder to pin down. Loving being a good technician is fun, but it isn't necessarily a passion (though I suppose one certainly could have a passion for technical accuracy).

What I'm interested in is that feeling of drive. That kind of passion.

Oh, and I'm glad you liked the still life!

 

[Spider67]

Remarkable......

Remarkable......

I guess what I mean by passion may also be characterized as drive. My passion for photography drives me. It gets me out of bed, it gets me through a job I dislike, it gives me the energy to keep doing it no matter how poorly things are going. It gave me the drive to keep making photographs after a total creative burnout. To be quite frank, my passion for photography got me through depression severe enough that without photography I might not be here today.

One can be really, really into photography and find it greatly entertaining and even enriching, but not be passionate about it. Passion is something else, comes from deeper and is harder to pin down. Loving being a good technician is fun, but it isn't necessarily a passion (though I suppose one certainly could have a passion for technical accuracy).

How many points of your description are perfectly fitting for my own approach:

- photography as the only thing after a severe physical and mental burnout
- the only thing that also got me through a very dark patch in my working life.

To have something that enables you to get out of bed.......It sounds so ridiculous but it can be so hard.

Thanks fro bringing up the topic

 

[David R Munson]

It's just the current in a string of them. Much better than operating a press or working as a line cook as I have done before, but still just a means to an end. In another year, another country, and soon after that hopefully starting my masters.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Examining the question from another angle I've been passionate about a lot of pursuits over the years, not just photography. The one real constant thing over the years has been photography, but that was how I paid the bills for the most part. I've without doubt gone through phases of being passionate about photography. Each time it was different though. For a couple of years it was trying to learn and be at ease with the techniques developed by Jerry Uelsmann, assembling an image out of several negatives printed one at a time onto a single sheet of paper so it looks like one photo. It was a challenge. The bigger problem wasn't mastering the technique but figuring out what I'd do with it. I just don't have Jerry's vision of unreality. Coming to terms with that took all the passion out of the project. Before that I'd played around with W. Eugene Smith's techniques of ferracyaniding a print to emphasize highlights while retaining the the darkest areas barely above jet black. Again, it was an excersize in learning the technique involved, but Gene and I don't have the same vision of reality.

At other stages of my life I've been passionate about fishing, winning tournaments, guiding for awhile, writing and lecturing about it. I've had periods where it was the writing itself that held my passion rather than the photography. Covering political events for various publications, which at first I found boring as hell, developed into a love of politics. I ended up being the late Congressman Bill Lehman's photographer for twenty-five years and doing most of the photography for the City of North Miami. But I also ended up being appointed to various advisory boards, the boards of various civic organizations, and again the passion faded. At one point I used the excuse that my mother had died to resign from everything, but I got sucked back into it again.

I'm just too scatter brained I suppose to stay on a narrow single track of passion. I never leave the house without a camera hanging from my shoulder or wrist. It's second nature to make the occasional light reading and adjust the shutter speed and aperture so I'm always ready to go "click!", but sometimes days go by and I don't find myself in a situation that incites any passion. Nor do I shoot all that much when I do feel it. A few frames get exposed, perhaps a change of position or go for a tighter shot with a longer lens, and something in my brain says "Got it!". Shooting more wouldn't be the answer unless there's a radical change in what's in front of me.

 

[pmun]

I should try to clarify something, though. What I am curious about is the role passion has played in your life, with your photography. Has it helped you? How so? What shape does it take? How does it direct your activities? I am curious about how it functions in your pursuit of photography.

Indeed, passion is a very personal thing. I am curious about the parallels in the ways it many function in our lives as well as the lives of our contemporaries.

Passion compels me to do something, but it's not enough on its own. Passion tends to burn itself out like a flame. So it needs commitment and belief to keep the activity going.

I'm for the most part passionate about my project, but I have doubts sometimes too, that's why I need those other qualities. I tend to put questions of its viability aside as I believe they are irrelevant. It is not so much what I do, but how I do it that is important to me (i.e. not the experience but the quality of the experience).

As such someone could get pleasure by spending their whole lives drawing simple straight lines and each one will stand for something. It will embody a lifetime's dedication. But the passion has to be there (at least some of the time) along with the belief and commitment.

www.urbanpaths.net

 

[notturtle]

For some the passion is corner resolution or absolute control over a range of 28 stops in the original scene by virtue of water bath development in De Beers mixed with Selectol Soft, followed by Eukobrom at 1+0.

I agree, however, that the above counts for nothing, if there is no passion for what you are pointing the camera at. To be a great people photographer, people must fascinate you. To be a great landscape photographer, the land must speak to you. Everything else is means to distilling that passion for others to share.

Those without passion can be competent. They can learn the formula for 'nice shots', but the images will always be nice pictures of stuff and never any more. The 'more' is always borne of passion and I believe that brilliance comes in the last five per cent of obsession. And by that, I am talking passion.

 

[peterm1]

I find myself getting more and more passionate about it. Well to be truthful its not so much about photography as about image making - of which photogrpahy is one element. I find that, as interesting if not more so, is what one does with the photo after the button is pressed. All of my photos get optimised in post processing (noise reduction, sharpening, color and tone) then most photos that I want to do anything with get some more 'artistic" edits to turn them into something different from that which came from the camera.

Somehow I feel driven - the constant urge to find the inner image that is not realised fully by the "raw" (no pun intended) image straight from the little black box. Mostly I only have a general idea of where I want to take the image. Sometimes I will not know at all. The final result is "emergent." It comes unbidden from the image / my subconscious. Quite often I find myself making images that are abstracted - especially with inanimate objects. Even if this just involves boosting mid-range contrast to draw out reflections, applying blur to reduce the 'reality" of the image and converting to black and white to focus the viewer on the resulting patterns.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/3065604514_6328da775b_b.jpg

And of course, occasionally the image is just there and very little intervention is required.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/3085301467_31c1ec5cdf_b.jpg

Although these days I am shooting more people in the street but even here I feel a compulsion to modify the image - to make it something that has more "art" about it. Whether I have succeeded or not is up to the viewers, I guess.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3543/3534016169_910b4c610b_o.jpg

Well, if that impulse is not passion, I do not know what is.

 

[hawkeye]

Passion? Hah.

It is more an addiction. A gnawing, thirsting drive that wells up in the darkest part of my soul and forces me to drag myself through the murky gutters, the fear filled forests and the mindless mobs of my environment. Forced like a vampire to seek some sort of "truth" to suck in to stay alive. To roam with my one eyed monster, its blinking, flashing madness freezing daily banality into some kind of crazy, immortal undying image.

And alas there is no rest for the photo brain eaters. We are condemned to our fate.

 

[Jonas Adolfsen]

The passion

The passion

I was reading your thread some hours ago and was about to reply because i found it interresting, but chose to go for a ride in my vintage car. And now i'm back. The reason i bring this up is that both this thread and the drive really made me think today, think of what gets me up from bed these days.

I have just finished my education as an architect one month ago, at a quite bad time for getting work. This has affected me a lot these last weeks, but luckily i have something to fall back on: Photography. And i know that "fall back on" seems like a bad thing to say for something that now (in addition to my time with my family) fuels my life. Photography does not create a great income all though it is my only source now, but it really makes me see and feel for somethng in a different way. It challenges me and it drives me, it makes me forget money and status and all these things that society forces you to deal with. And it forces me to create. Forces in a good way, because i really care for what i capture. Care even if it does not have a use or a goal. Just care for me and having a good time shooting, scanning and publishing my work even if it does not save lives og make me rich.

And when it comes to phtography as an art, and the discussion of suffering, i am one of those who believe in suffering through living your art (no, i do not consider myself an artist), and living it fully. Not just capturing a few shots of something that seems real. Really living it, its ups and downs, and being able to defend and stand up for the questions your pictures raise (i belive that art is about raising questions about important aspects of living, dying and the society we live and die in).

And last, it feels good to find a forum to have these discussions in.

Jonas A
(always carrying a Olympus 35 SP, Rollei 35 or Hasselblad SWC)

 

[hawkeye]

Jonas

Your response is wonderful. You have the passion.

What I said in perhaps overly purple prose and in pseudo-Romantic style was the same thing.

Your post is the first I've read that truly has the "passion". For most everyone else the word passion was used when they mean "liked a lot."

Passion is an addiction to some thing or some one. The Buddha thought it was the source of pain because that was the world he came out of. A world of Hindu gods and luxury. But saying it is the cause doesn't make it so.

The Romantic poets luxuriated in a world of excess feeling. Of storms and thunder and bodices bursting.

There is a quote from a French writer that says "love is the most vicious of poisons" Yes, not Hallmark card syrupy sweet. But love can tear you apart can take you places you may not want to go, to see and feels things you never knew existed. To have passion is to be overwhelmed and swept up. To be attracted and repelled and to be in love and in fear all at once.

In my life I have been lucky to know a few of the really great photographers of the 20th century and to a person what they said about photography was pretty much what you posted.

Warm regards