Why take pictures?

[Darthfeeble]

I got tired of looking at my childish drawings. I feel a need to capture the beauty I see around me, though sometimes it's the absurdity I see.

 

[neal3k]

It is a compulsion; I am a shooting addict. If I have not been out on a photo expedition for a week or two, I start getting an incredible urge to go out and find some subjects. I do feel like I am getting better in spotting photo subjects that at least entertain me and possibly others on Flickr and a photo email group I have.

 

[kbb]

I photograph for the purpose of creating interesting photographs. Creating an interesting photo is the hoped-for accomplishment.
Quantitatively, most of my shots are test shots---necessary for the the learning of, and to practice with, the equipment.
What I like about it: It's all mine. No client, no boss, no rules from the outside.
Hired work is a different game...their rules. I do that for television.
I agree with Koudelka's recent statement that [I hope I'm quoting this exactly] "Photography is not art. It's photography."

 

[hap]

I got tired of looking at my childish drawings. I feel a need to capture the beauty I see around me, though sometimes it's the absurdity I see.

You must be Camus"esque".

 

[jsrockit]

I agree with Koudelka's recent statement that [I hope I'm quoting this exactly] "Photography is not art. It's photography."

Unless he said it somewhere else, he said "I’m a photographer, that’s all. Like anything else, not all paintings are art. Not all photographs are art. They might be, but it’s not up to me to say." I think he's being cute... he makes artist books, shows in art galleries and in art museums.

 

[bullterrier]

...when you can have them for free?

 

[BillBingham2]

These days I do it because it makes me happy to look at my good images.

On good days I can capture something that others may have missed in a way that can get people thinking about the world we rush through.

After stepping away from developing software and a bit of hardware I found that my creative side needed an outlet so I got back into photography as it gives me a creative outlet management does not.

It's been one of the few (perhaps the only) thread that has been constant throughout say the last 55 years. While it ebbs and flows, it's always been there. I used it to create slides for a presentation back in the mid 80's, made extra cash doing weddings here and there, these days because of my iPhone it touches just about every aspect of my life.

B2 (;->

 

[bluesun267]

I should try that. Old age has made me introspective - perhaps too much so.

John

In all seriousness, this is what I've had to do, otherwise I would do nothing. And it is really liberating to say goodbye to that dark figure that sits over your shoulder saying 'you'll never make it' (among other such quips).

 

[Pál_K]

Lenses are shiny and the glass makes cool reflections. Cameras (mechanical only) make nice sounds when you use them and are full of wonderful gears and springs and other neat things. Pulling a freshly developed roll off the reel is a feast of anticipation, what treasure awaits the eye. I’m really not at all an artist, but the tactile feel of a fine mechanical camera is just delightful, even after many years.

Yes! An honest man!

I’ve really enjoyed reading all the responses in this thread.

 

[Godfrey]

My father liked photography and, being a dentist, he loved gadgets ... cameras being cool gadgets to him. He used photography in his practice to document the jaw reconstruction work he did. Both his brothers, and his father, also liked photography.

So I guess at the very beginning ... when I was about 6 years old and he gave me a camera for my birthday ... I was overjoyed because I could do what my father did. And it fascinated me, both the cameras and the way you could make photographs that went past being of a particular time and place, a particular moment's recording. I bought my first adjustable camera when I was 8 and was amazed at how much more I could do with it, how much more expressive it could be. And then, a little later, my grandfather loaned me the same 1949 Rolleiflex that my uncle had learned photography with, my mom loaned me her Argus C3, and I started high school. Within a year I'd bought myself a Nikon F Photomic FTn with my uncle's help.

My father and uncles all gave up trying to teach me at that point. I'd gone past them in studying and doing photography—equipment, chemistry, film, processing, and for art and books. My father once told me, as a sophomore in high school, "When I need to know something about photography, I'll just come to you. You know more about it now." I studied it every night, almost more than my school work, and worked in the darkroom in the basement at home when I couldn't be at the lab in school.

I became the chief of the photo staff for the rest of my high school years and have done photography for myself and for others, as a business and for my personal satisfaction, on and off, ever since. It has been my avocation, if not my career, longer than anything else in my lifetime. I ran the photo lab in college for a time, taught photography on several occasions, and operated photographic businesses three times in the course of my life.

And I still find myself learning lots of new things every time I pick up my camera.... There is just sheer joy in that for me. It is a pursuit that has no end point, you can keep going, keep learning, for as long as the motivation to do so is in you.

Thank the gods there's something like that to keep Life interesting and challenging as I reach my dotage. 🙂

G

 

[markjwyatt]

My father liked photography and, being a dentist, he loved gadgets ...G

Which Leica did he own? (couldn't resist)