What's the point

R

Robert

Guest
I've been clearing, or starting to clear out my roof space and found numerous photo albums, packs of photos and boxes of slides.
I enjoyed using the camera and taking the photos, excited at the thought of getting them from the processers.
After a couple of viewings the photos are left away and forgotten about.
Interest lost, time to take more, this time I will take slides and look foreward to projecting them to check if they are sharp etc.
The next time I will try B&W and so the cycle goes on.
Digital was then the greatest thing, scanning the slides and negatives.
Buy a DSLR, brilliant, hundreds of photos on the computer. Computer crash. No back-up.
For several years I used an APS camera and snapped away then I got into rangefinders, the Contax then the Leica.
I'm just thinking what's the point of taking photographs.
Please forgive my ramblings, I've been off work with a tummy bug and am feeling sorry for myself.
 
Errrr.....'cause it's a way to capture moments/people/events that are (at least momentarily) significant? Or, because it's a way to express yourself and your particular view of something? Or because you enjoy the form/colors/textures of something and want to preserve/enhance/enjoy/share your vision? Dunno, exactly, but for me, seems to be a compulsion.

'Slainte!
Don
 
The photography that we do is art, not record-keeping, and all artists have times of low output and self-doubt.

Rest, relax and enjoy something else until the urge to make photos gets strong again.

Go to an art show, watch some movies and observe the photography, and look at work by some great photographers.

Do not buy a new camera or lens and think that it will improve your photography. It won't.
 
What's the point?

What's the point?

You could say the same thing about drawing or painting a picture, reading a book (you eventually forget) or writing a novel and many other spheres of human activity.
Unless you are both very talented and very lucky your efforts are likely to be doomed to an early exit from human view. Even for the very best the expression "only nothing is forever" is ultimately true.
The enjoyment of photography (for me anyway) is as much in the process of creation as in the end result. It is to be enjoyed in the present and not with a view to building anything of lasting worth.
It is a way of extending your enjoyment of the present and adds to the pleasure gained from other activities too . Walking round a new city is good fun but walking round a new city with my camera is more fun.
My two penn'orth anyway! I am sure others will express this view much better than I have.
 
I think Don's right, it is a compulsion for many people. I think everyone should, however, strive to exhibit their work in some way or another. My wife said the other night (after working at the libarary cataloging local obituaries) that we all take in information and organize it, make it into something new, in our minds. That's what we do. We have to get that interpretation of reality out there somehos. It may be how we advance, slowly, as a species. You never know what idea or perspective may come in handy.

My friend Peter sells prints of his landscapes and they are excellent. Not earth-shattering, Magnum won't be calling him (even if they don't cover that genre), but the people who buy them are pleased to have art made by hand by a person they know of local natural wonders. Gosh wouldn't it be great if amateur photography could put the couch art market out of business? Or the greeting card business? Or the poster business?

There's lots of ways to publish. Online as a blog or even a flickr account (etc), do your own zine, make your own Christmas cards from your prints, put up your work at home. It may be our responsibility to contribute what we've learned, to extrapolate from Walker Evan's quote. We are not here long.

Just a thought to (I hope) inspire.

d
 
If there's no point now there could be one in the future. And in the meantime I'll print a few 20x30cm prints and hang them on my wall, shoot some photos for publications, and have a shot or two in an exhibition. Heck, maybe I'll sell one one day too. :)
 
Robert said:
I've been clearing, or starting to clear out my roof space and found numerous photo albums, packs of photos and boxes of slides.
I enjoyed using the camera and taking the photos, excited at the thought of getting them from the processers.
After a couple of viewings the photos are left away and forgotten about.
Interest lost, time to take more, this time I will take slides and look foreward to projecting them to check if they are sharp etc.
The next time I will try B&W and so the cycle goes on.
Digital was then the greatest thing, scanning the slides and negatives.
Buy a DSLR, brilliant, hundreds of photos on the computer. Computer crash. No back-up.
For several years I used an APS camera and snapped away then I got into rangefinders, the Contax then the Leica.
I'm just thinking what's the point of taking photographs.
Please forgive my ramblings, I've been off work with a tummy bug and am feeling sorry for myself.
Click to expand...

I think this is a fair question, with two sides: "record keeping" and "art"

Record keeing requires a narrative and a story to make a photo interesting: when was it taken, who was there, what was the significant moment etc. This build into a family or community archive with some value.

Art - as an expression of emotion or an idea, should perhaps be timeless. There is no need to know what happened to whom. It is left to the viewer to fil in the blanks.

In both cases, photographs will only have value if viewed. That means careful storage and ready access perhaps either as prints or on the web.
 
I agree with the ideas of a combination of "record keeping" and "express ourselves with art". Sometimes more on one side, sometimes more on the other.
Both very important. Looking back at pictures taken20-30 or even more years ago is a journey in the time. Just looking at the way we were dressing, or the cars around gives an idea. Friend or relatives, some changed, other are no more with us. record keeping keep us (at least me) alive.
On the wall in front of me, now, behind the computer screen, there is a photo I stick there a few days ago: found in a box is a simple snap of me and a good friend, smiling. My friend is a pro photographer and his assistent took the picture. Very simple snap shot. On tha bach is written:" 20 jan, 2004; H 18.30. Sunny and windy day.
taken to verify quality and innovation of digital pictures: smile" it s just a joke, but I guess in a few years we'look at this pictures with different eyes.
Expressing ourselves, our ideas or daily (hope not so frequently!) frustration is a great help in going on. Some friends of mine look at my pictures and are able to understan my mood when I was taking the pictures.
personally I find this all GREAT !
robert
 
dreilly said:
<cropped>
There's lots of ways to publish. Online as a blog or even a flickr account (etc), do your own zine, make your own Christmas cards from your prints, put up your work at home. It may be our responsibility to contribute what we've learned, to extrapolate from Walker Evan's quote. We are not here long.

Just a thought to (I hope) inspire.

d
Click to expand...
Well said, let me add a couple more ideas, online "scrapbooks" like picaboo, shutterfly, and the ever so cute moo cards, etc. allows us to self-publish for fun or for profit.

The point for me is to make better pictures.

So to keep going, I have to get my pictures looked-at/edited/criticized/jeered/boo-ed by my *honest* friends, that's the only way to improve my pictures in my experience. For example when one of my picture is deleted in a pool in flickr because it's not "good enough", that burns me up to produce better pictures.

Translate responses this way:
- "That's nice" = "boooring..."
- "How did you do that?" = "now you're getting closer..."
- "...." = "got it!!!"

Hope you feel better and keep on truck'in!
 
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A friend of mine died last Friday. He was one of a group of us that hung around in graduate school 40 years ago. His wife invited everyone to their home the next day (Saturday) to celebrate his life. I went into my stash of 10,000 photos and found a set of black and white slides in perfect conditon (Pan X reversal processing) I had made of them doing a funny skit in 1969. Then a few others. I took them to the party and ran a non-stop slide show in the corner. Most people laughed away, not at only the funny skit, but the way we looked. It was tearful and irreplacable.

I am glad I kept them. And really glad I took them.

I am going to scan them and create a shutterfuly book for her. Maybe her kids and someday grandchildren will get a kick out of them.
 
In one of John D. McDonald"s fiction novels a character makes the comment that "Most people use their eyes to keep from bumping into things". One of the first things I noticed after starting in photography was that I began to "see" things differently. Sometimes things as subtle as the underlying form of a scene. Sometimes seeing and recognizing a scene of beauty. Or of humor. I think one steps across a door of perception when picking up a camera and once through the door you cannot go back whether you carry a camera or not. There are no two things in the universe that are exactly alike and our eyes are the device with which we can discern the differences. In my case the effect was less pronounced in those periods when I was not involved in photography but it was never completely gone.

Take a break. Maybe it's best for you if you never pick up a camera again. In any case you have altered your perception of the world and in my opinion that is a good thing. You can "see" now. And that will never change.
 
dspeltz,

I am very sorry to hear your friend had died.

I am glad you had the slides and were able to cheer people up for a time.

Robert
 
We're of an age, Robert-well, you're a bit older!

I have many of the pictures I've taken, and without exception every one that made me happy/sad/mad at the time is still valuable to me. None of the "tests" and few of the bug/rock/flower ones hold much interest for me. I use this to inform my choice of subject.
 
The porint is different for all of us, I think. For me though, the point of photography is to make memories, and to make a difference in the world around for the better. A freiend of mine, after seeing a book I put together and had printed (self-published) told me she was shooting more because of what she saw, that the pictures encouraged her to go out and photograph. That was just about the best thing ever, and it's why i do it. It's a reason to get out of bed in the morning, it's a reason to live. Artists and teachers are the ones who do the most in holding back the next dark ages. As photographers, we share in that. I make pictures so that other people can see what I see. That's all, the end. Anyway, I hope you feel better, Robert.
 
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