What is the Point of Photography ?

Tom A said:
No worries its only me.
Happy to participate in Helen's discussion.
Tuulikki
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Hi Tuulikki,
great that you join the conversation.
If you could please go to the user CP / "edit signature" and update the signature of the account ... it scares the h... out of me.:eek:
Thanks a lot.

We also miss Tom & Mr. B.
 
For me, it is preserving the past (of landscapes, cities, and people). I do this because I know things will change, usually for the worse, and I want a record of how a place used to be.

I also like architecture and nature - the shapes, the beauty. I like recording travels. Some of the people here who have made a record of their travels or the use of one single camera, are enjoyable to see.
 
helenhill said:
What is the point of Photography?

... One has a distinct signature, which is written in life. Your Life and the way You see...
Eric always said photography was pure magic !

What are your Thoughts ?
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Hi Helen,

things change in life, as does your way of seeing and it immediately reflects in your images. A good while ago, before a masterclass, I was taking pictures to kind of document things I liked, I found interesting, moments of emotion and expression of people on the street or aristist, singers in live performances. Sometimes I caught special moments and later viewing the image I said "yesss" to myself. I guess we all know that feeling of a good score. After the class, I felt ll my previous stuff was just that : documentary, not bad for what it was but you look at it for 2 sec and get the message... nothing to think about, to contemplate, to get you mind wandering around with the image as a starting point. I never ever felt any of my images were art. Well it changed. And I can tell you that when you look at something on the tiny lcd screen of a camera and suddenly you realize it's art and you don't have a shred of a doubt about it ...;) :) :D.
My images now transform a scene, a daily life household item, e.g. a spoon by means of light, shaddow, composition and focus into something very different than just a documentary representation of the item.

For me it's art now, Eric called it magic.
Maybe we mean the same.

"You don't just expose the image, you expose yourself" R.Gibson
 
I think I'm of the Louis Armstrong school when it comes to this question: If you have to ask, you're never gonna know.
 
What is the point of photography?

For each of us it probably has multiple points or purposes. It provides a record. It draws family and friends to the task or is candid and either type of photograph is precious and becomes more so with time. It records scenes of significance to us personally or to all of us. And then it is an exploration. It is something to do. It is something to make. It is a means of communication, like music. It is an education like music and literature. I (the photographer) was here, I read not long ago, is a fundamental declaration of a photograph. It is a skill to acquire, techniques to master, problems to solve, skills to show others. Deeper, it is the preciousness of a moment, not always easy to reveal in a photograph, but arresting when achieved, but may be subtle. It is a grasping of form in nature or man made objects. Any successes we have doing it furthers our engagements as social beings, but establishing a style and declaring our achievements might be the least important thing. Then wrapped in all the above it is for the photographer an absorbing activity that he or she must do.

Notes on this wonderful thread:

First, we have all been drawn in by your original post, by you Helen whom we all respect so much, and one immortal arrived thanks to Tuulikki.

Intrigued by your non PC use of ‘he’ Helen. Memorable.

Loved the reference to Minor White above. His two photographs in Szarkowski’s Looking at Photographs are remarkable. Would like to read what he has written.

Barnwulf here (Jim Barnes) now gone had as his signature a quote from Giacometti: “I now work only for the sensation I have while working.”

Saul Leiter seemed to be so pleased that he had not become famous earlier.

Paul A Smith of Lodima Press, also gone: “Artists are more interested in making things than things made.” That speak to our love of the process.

Another point of photography is to be on RFF! My photographic group has not met since early March. We are so looking forward to seeing each other and sharing our work, which we have of course been doing online in the meantime.
 
icebear said:
Hi Tuulikki,
great that you join the conversation.
If you could please go to the user CP / "edit signature" and update the signature of the account ... it scares the h... out of me.:eek:
Thanks a lot.

We also miss Tom & Mr. B.
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I think if Tuuliki changes TomA's signature, it will 'overwrite' the signature on every TomA post from the past, which I'd rather not see.
 
I have known several family members and friends whose last years were spent in a nursing home. A room, a bed and some photos on the wall. If I make it that far I plan on having lots of photos of friends, family, events, places and times past. Along the way I've had lots of fun making these pictures and getting to know wonderful folks like the members here. Joe
 
It's changed for me over time. Originally I got into it because I needed reference material for oil painting. Then, I fell in love with it. It's the perfect blend of tech nerd/science and art. I think the hardest part of any visual art is composition. Photography offers fast exploration of composition compared to drawing or painting. I've thought a lot of your question over the past year or so myself and have broken things down into categories of what makes for effective photography.

1. Capturing and documenting a historical moment. Either by chance or seeking it out, historic moments occur and it acts as a visual for future generations to say "THIS HAPPENED"
2. Personal memories, which is sort of the same as above but on a personal note.
3. Just making something pretty. Landscapes, macro flowers, etc. Things that are just pretty to look at.
4. Straight up portraiture

5. The only one that can stand alone...Composition. Just putting the right shapes with the right edges in the right spots will make or break any of the above.

If a photo can combine any of 1-4 along with #5, they will have a successful photo IMHO. Finding compositions is the most difficult thing in any visual art I think. In my case it is what led me to use a 50mm 75% of the time (when I started it was GO AS WIDE AS
POSSIBLE). I find it easier to compose with a 50 than a wide or tele.

Who knows what draws us to want to take a photo or create something. Likely the same thing that makes some folks want to dig into a car engine, or sew clothes, or write etc. I think it activates the hemisphere of our brain that we can lose track of time and really distance ourselves and be introspective. Thank god for that.
 
Everyone has different "points" or motivations in their photography. I respect each of them. Mine is to communicate information and create historical records of social structures that appear to be on the verge of passing away. The philosophical comment "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"has meaning to me so I strive to have as many people see my work as possible, either exhibits, publication, or on-line. That's just as long as I can cultivate their interest in what I deem important. I do not attempt to reach what the public considers mainstream, only my areas of interest.

Photographs are the most successful communication medium for me in my opinion. That is my "point" or motivation. Nothing to do with cameras or the craft of photography. Heretical for some here, I understand. But if I thought I could communicate better with words rather than visually, I would be a writer instead of a photographer.
 
If I were to compare photography to music, I would say that I am more interested in the melody and the rhythm; not so much in the words.

I am interested in the graphic qualities of an image and the feelings that visual dynamics can invoke on their own. I'm really not interested in documentation.

- Murray
 
Like those ten million writer monkeys (each on a typewriter), ten million image maker photographers (with their 100+ million cameras) will have an equal number of reasons for their reasons for doing what they do.

Me, I alternate between two distinct and separate goals, intentions, points, purposes, reasons. Whichever.

The perfectionist (the architect) in me seeks to record beautiful buildings, mostly old and dating to the colonial era in Asia, for posterity. I enjoy this as I basically see the world and think in grids, and architectural photography further imposes this pleasant and logical discipline on me. My clients (when I sell a photo nowadays, which, alas, is all too seldom) agree with me and buy my images to publish, usually in books. Occasionally I am given a credit as well as a small payment, which further massages and reinforces my ego.

The unorganised (typical Sagittarian layabout) part of me goes out with a camera to make sense of the craziness and at times outright madness of our modern day world. Now and then I succeed. Often as not I return with a digiload of lovely pictures which I post process into lurid 1940s Kodachrome and Ektachrome lookalikes, caption and keyword, and then put away in folders, maybe (or maybe not) to be looked at again or even more rarely, shown to my partner and the few people I know who share my passion.

The main objective of all my photography is to get me out and about and have fun, usually when I travel in Asia, which I do as often as I can. Sitting at home in Australia now, amusing myself by looking at some of my many tens of thousands of old color slides and B&W negatives, waiting for this latest crazy crisis to abate so I can be off overseas again.

Nothing really more erudite or philosophical than that. As the Balinese are fond of saying, "if you think too much, you get sick." Too right!!
 
pyeh said:
I think if Tuuliki changes TomA's signature, it will 'overwrite' the signature on every TomA post from the past, which I'd rather not see.
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Agree. Please, leave well enough alone.

We have too few icons in this site as it is. The late Tom, Helen, a few others. My 'idols' here I can count on the fingers of both my hands, and have enough fingers left over for a good scratch.
 
When I go on a shoot with the camera around my neck or drive around the Southwest with the camera and tripod in the back seat I am in a zone and I become more aware of my surroundings - the people, the houses, shops, trees, hats, coats, shapes, angles, light all gathered in an imaginary frame. I’d gladly give up lunch for a roll of film if it comes to that. It’s something I need to do.
 
CMur12 said:
If I were to compare photography to music, I would say that I am more interested in the melody and the rhythm; not so much in the words.

I am interested in the graphic qualities of an image and the feelings that visual dynamics can invoke on their own. I'm really not interested in documentation.

- Murray
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I like this idea. Some photographs are just about photography. My appreciation of music and my piano playing have both been enhanced by greater insight into photography. The nuance of black and white photography allows me to add more colour to my playing. The same subtleties of light that distinguish a photograph from a mere record work in playing the music on the page, slowing a little bit there, changing the emphasis within a chord here. One of the wonderful things in music is the silence between the notes, the negative space, working with it, giving the subject matter (the notes) more bite. The absorption in this is one of the wonders of music and photography.
 
Taken in July 1959 when I was seven, camera was a 127 brownie. I've never thought about why...
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