What gives your photography purpose?

I've noticed that some of us are struggling to stay interested, stay busy in, and/or have fun with photography.

I find this a bit for myself when A) I don't have a purpose for a shot, or B) I'm not learning something. My brain seems to need a reason to pay attention.

So I want to know "what gives your photography purpose?" Is it creating art for yourself or an escape or social or a business or...

For me:

Last night I shot a wedding and had a great time, just boxed up 6 rolls of 400NC and 3 rolls of BW400cn that will leave for the lab Monday.

A decent meal, some fun conversation, I got to play with my toys, and got to be creative with composition, and lighting, and posing, had to think quick, and got meet new people. I don't have any post processing to do in PS and I get paid.

I won't even know if everything I tried worked for a fortnight, but I'm not too worried; I trust my tools.

Photography had real purpose last night, more importantly than that, "I" had real purpose. My skills were valuable to someone and it was rewarding on a social level too.

This isn't the only place I find value. My wife enjoys shooting too (albeit on the digital side) so we get to spend time together and I get to teach her things.

There's more but it's your turn.

It gives me a chance to exercise my creative muscle and keeps me amused at the same time. Oh, and I need something to spend my money on.

I am lucky enough to have a couple of long time friends also hooked on cameras and photography. We meet and discuss gear, and plan our next field trip.
We develop, print and discuss the result while drinking vast amounts of tea.

The exchange of ideas and theories as well as the social part keep our picturemaking something to look forward to.

What gives your photography purpose?

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According to my wife, not much.

I try to give my photography emotion on some sort of level, especially when I shoot portraits. Film makes this easier to do, as unlike digital, film seems to show soul in some way that I can't describe. Just me though.

I make pictures.

Having a project. I've noticed that random shooting doesn't do it for me. So I will now go and find myself a good project to cut my teeth on! Thanks for starting this thread, it gives rise to good and much needed brain waves.

I bought some sheets of mountboard last week. From now on I'm going to make a point of entering the darkroom with the intention of producing a print that I feel proud to mount, frame, and display on the wall, no matter how long it takes and how many binned sheets of paper.

Spent too many evenings this year "just doing some printing" and turning out mediocre results. The lack of achievement is having an effect on my motivation.

Ian

creating something. Since I'm a photo major, this is critical for me. I'm still not sure as to where I want to go with my photography.

the main thing that gives my work purpose is Conveying what I see and how I see it to the world

-Dan

One beautiful photograph is worth a thousand hours of therapy.

Everybody has their occasional struggle and loss of focus and delivery. Diversify your interests, shoot the mundane as well as the magnificent, never be put off by repetition if it brings refinement, no matter how small. Be critical and fair with your own work as part of the learning process, and look at all mistakes, big or small as a gift, rather than a problem.

Painters and other solid medium artists also have their doledrums, so what you are speaking about is certainly not confined to photographers of any persuasion. If you have an VA degree (irrespective of methods and models studied), you will learn how to diversify, improvise, compact and overcome exploit psychological barriers; in that sense, creative photography can be looked at as a real tonic — something to pick you up and separate you from the gloom around you, even if finding that inspiration is sometimes illusive. It will come!

.::Garyh

Stan160 said:

I bought some sheets of mountboard last week. From now on I'm going to make a point of entering the darkroom with the intention of producing a print that I feel proud to mount, frame, and display on the wall, no matter how long it takes and how many binned sheets of paper.

Spent too many evenings this year "just doing some printing" and turning out mediocre results. The lack of achievement is having an effect on my motivation.

Ian

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I've had the same experience, and decided on the same solution, as a result of finally making some nice prints of some negatives I took in April!

Twice this year I took the opportunity to go out shooting and both times had a really great time and got some nice negs to work with now. For me it is just setting the time aside to photograph that slows things down,but once out there things look up and inspiration flows.

Mike

It's a little sad but I am amazed how it all happens, it's all very exciting and I just love creating.

Paul

For as long as I have been serious about photography, I have been attracted to a specific subject and have photographed it repeatedly (along with many other unrelated subject areas.) But I have only recently come to understand the value of exploring the subject as a self-directed project, with the goal of producing over a long period of time a body of work that defines and describes the subject . This project is giving me a purpose for photographing: exploring the subject in great detail, working to master a certain set of materials, and refining my artistic vision.

Some of us who are really fortunate have a passion for something. It may be photography. It may be baseball, but it drives us. I got my first camera in third grade. I have wanted to photograph ever since. For three years in college I worked as a paid photographer for the Art Department, helping to build a teaching architectural slide library. At age 69 I am more driven to photograph than at any time in my life.

Several have mentioned the advantage of working on a series, building an idea, refining it, augmenting it with multiple images. After a career in sales I am very goal oriented. The local college offers advanced photography courses that require a series of twenty matted enlarged images per term. The State of Ohio encourages seniors to obtain further education to the point that a $1000 course in a state funded school costs parking and lab fees.

The idea of input and friends working on the same project has also been mentioned. The college courses require class critique of new images every two weeks. We have started a gathering of 15-25 Apug members from four states who meet here on the edge of a national park every two months. All these things are an outlet, motivational and rewarding for not just one, but all participants.

What hasn’t worked for me is a large local photography club that has gone digital, is dominated by personalities that think everything I am doing and enjoying is wrong, and whose tastes differ considerably from those of the Art Department at the college who are published, in museums and have received major national grants. Another unsuccessful location is a local artist’s group that prohibits any work done in workshops or classes wanting to avoid the work of the teacher rather than the student. They on the other hand are perfectly happy to have visiting artists speak, critique their work, tell them how to change their work and enter the work in their own contests. Go figure.

From my own experience I would say that you have to DO IT YOURSELF. It will not be presented to you. You have to tailor what you do to fit what motivates and can be done by you. Or as Nike says, “Just do it”.

John Powers

Photography is a way to work with who I am by working with how I see things.
Dennis