what does it mean to you?

back alley

back alley

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been thinking lately (not just about gear) but what being able to photograph means to me...
i have always read that making art is about telling your story, having a messege and telling it to others...being about what you are trying to say!
i have long looked at my images and wondered what it is that i have been trying to say...and i didn't know until i read bill pierce's line about showing others what i see...that fit just so perfectly. the best images are the ones that i share with others, discuss and listen to what it means to them, the viewer.

now, i do need gear to produce an image...but i am (slowly) realizing that what that gear is - is so less important than the rest of the process.

so what does it mean? being able to create an image?
i love the abilty to see something in a way that some others might not have looked at that same way. i love being able to carry a favourite tool to help create that image.
i love being an artist...
 
I agree, photography for most of us is sharing. My own feeling in this digital world is that my ultimate goal is still to produce a print to hang on a wall - that's sharing. And that sharing goes both ways. Often others see things in my photos that I do not. While on vacation with my wife a couple weeks ago, I took an iPhone picture of her in the courtyard of the Palm Springs Art Museum - just a snapshot. When we got home, I printed a 4x6 of it on my spiffy new Epson R3000 printer. She noticed that her pose, talking on her cell phone was the almost exactly the same as the pose of the statue next to her. It's a cool photo that I did not even realize until she pointed it out to me.
 
For me it's producing a big pile of stuff that will be difficult for the kids to entirely dispose of should something inevitable happen ;)

I like the idea that something will live on, if you like
 
Freedom, discovery, fun, embracing culture, celebrating the past, celebrating life, being critical, and trying to make great photos from the things people walk past every day without noticing.
 
I guess I like the idea that someone will look at something I've done and feel something because of it. Hopefully they won't be bored.
 
I spend a lot of time working with words and concepts, so I wanted some more involvement with sounds and images. For years I just used photography to document the underground music scene, the aboriginal music scene, and related milieux in Taiwan.

Since I moved to France, my life has become a lot more one-dimensional.

My relationship to photography now is kind of in crisis, the crisis of my relation, or really non-relation, to the society in which I live. I'm still much more connected to the life world in Taiwan than France. My biggest photographic projects are still in Taiwan.
 
I mostly take pictures of my family and friends. I like being able to show them images of fleeting moments that reveal something about themselves and their loved ones, that they usually don't notice in the midst of the ebb and flow of living. And, of course, photography lets me observe closely while in the moment, rather than only in retrospect when many of the details are irretrievably lost.

I'd love it if I were making pictures of any artistic or lasting merit outside that context, but I haven't really succeeded in that regard so far. Ars longa, man; vita friggin' brevis.

::Ari
 
I've been wondering this myself lately.

I think I mostly take photos to remember. I spent an hour yesterday looking through my old photos, realizing that a lot has happened and a lot has changed in the past year or so. While times have changed and passed, I still have a memory. It's nice to have an image to go with that memory, sometimes as a form of verification... sometimes just a nice little addition, a physical embodiment of a memory!

I guess I shoot to tell the story of my life, the story of my parents, my friends. I want to remember what I saw and did.

Gear... gear is fun, it has very little importance in the meaning of photography to me; it's a whole 'nother game. Gear is fun... collecting, experimenting, learning.
 
It's the thrill of "getting that shot". That thrill is strengthened by waiting for my photos to get developed. Then there's the process, the handling of well made mechanical tools that you need to learn how to use according to their strengths and weaknesses. Having the camera preset and just waiting for the right moment is happiness to me. Then of course sharing my photos with my in-laws, who live on the other side of the globe and who see their grandson maybe once a year.
 
For me, finding my place within in the world. One of my favorite quotes;

I’m always looking outside, trying to look inside.
Trying to tell something that’s true.
But maybe nothing is really true.
Except what’s out there.

-Robert Frank

If I wasn't a photographer, I was going to be a serigrapher/painter.
 
I like to travel, photographing those places is the obvious thing to do. I went to india quite a few years ago, I was on a long break from photography at the time, and really regret the photos I could have taken but didn't, it won't happen again.
 
A very interesting topic and one I've been grappling with quite recently.

I've had a running personal project documenting my city's abandoned buildings, tunnels, drains & rooftops of skyscrapers - basically, all of the places other people won't go and never get to see. This has been my passion over the past few years and has developed my photographic skill considerably.

However, I am at a cross-roads now where I look at my photography and ask "why" - what is the purpose of my shooting? I don't intend to publish that body of work anywhere other than online under a pseudonym, due to issues with tresspassing, nor does that bother me, however, in every other facet of my life, I have direction; purpose; goals.

For whatever reason, my photography lacks that direction. Like many, I have toyed with the idea of devoting time & effort to going professional, however I have the luxury of a well-paying job in finance and would likely never be able to replicate my income with a job in photography. In addition, I don't want to get to a point where my passion and love of photography is dampened by it being my job as well.

Anyway, I will be watching this thread avidly, as even the small number of posts so far have shed some interesting light on different angles I could look at this issue and different ways my passion for photography could take me!
 
With me, it's all about passion. Sometimes it makes me sad to see that others can just carry on by doing what they do on a daily basis. I envy them.

When I was a boy, I read Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys and have always carried his motto: "Try to leave this world behind a bit better than you found it". It's been a blessing and a burden.

When I was in my twenties, I wanted to educate adults through journalism. I lost my motivation due to lack of progress.
When I was in my thirties, I wanted to educate youngsters through teaching. I lost my motivation due to lack of progress.
Last year I turned fourty. I have choices to make: either become politically active or turn to art as a refuge. And forget about contributing to a better world.
By the time I turn fifty I will likely emigrate and try again in some other society.

So around this time, when I choose art, it will be portrait photography and writing and it will have to pay the rent, at least for a part. The other part will likely be a economically viable job that I will take no pride in. Politics would leave the same choices though so there's no escaping. Either way, the esteem in society for artists and politicians is equally low nowadays.
 
For me, photography at its core is about preserving moments in time, creating a visual record of what is present but quickly becomes the past. As a boy, I spent many hours pouring over books of photographs taken during the American Civil War. The looks, dress, poses of men and women who lived a century before, not to mention the scenes of battlefield carnage, were preserved in amazing detail even though the subjects were long gone. Their images lived and live on, even though they are dead. I feel the same way today about an Atget, HCB, Capa, or Frank photo: people, scenes, landscapes preserved even though the subjects are gone or landscapes irrevocably altered. And when you combine the photographic preservation of the present with the process of photography itself (gear, film, processing, printing) and an aesthetic component, photography becomes an artistic challenge that, to me at least, is endlessly fascinating. YMMV.
 
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