What Photography is to YOU

[Kodiak]

I was professional Photographer and Painter until year when job I did turned toward digital imaging. Today my world is very different, I am happier and I am performing only for myself, and have zero interest in showing my photographs to other. No points in it I found.

To me:

1. It is my memory on the past moment important in my life. If I see something that matters to my life I will not skip it. I will take my Camera which is always with me.

Examples are
Food I like and ate
Bed where I sleep
Reflections on rainy day
…

2. It is proof for some facts I am interested to prove to myself, so make identity Portraitures with Lifestyle or Candid shooting style and with specific category

Examples are:
Aging of my Wife and me,
My cherished boots
My beloved Lexus
Canadians
…

So now is you turn

 

[Rick A]

It's physics and chemistry. At least that's what I tell people when asked about my hobby. I tells them physics and chemistry, they give me that "oh shit" look and back away slowly. Then I don't have to entertain their dumbass questions if I had said photography. Best response to my 5x7 camera in the field, "I bet it takes neat old pictures". I prefer to avoid imbeciles.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Another way for me to make art.

 

[jim10219]

All of the above. Photography is a means of self expression. Plus it's cheaper than painting and less hard on my finger joints than music. I also like the physics and chemistry aspect, plus I enjoy all of the engineering and repair projects that come along with it. It's one of those things that just keeps expanding in different, unexpected directions.

 

[KenS]

A two dimensional 'capture' of a three dimensional reality
Ken

 

[NB23]

It’s a fuzzy wuzzY

 

[slackercrurster]

I like to document my world and people in it...proverbial warts and all.

 

[Berkeley Mike]

I've been working in film, alternative and digital capture. From that perspective, the essential principle of photography is:

light captured and retained by a sensitive medium creating an image.

What we do with that is a whole 'nother thing. What materials and process we use or prefer does not effect that.

 

[Eric Rose]

Photography for me is the physical representation of a spiritual/mental inspiration.

 

[NB23]

It’s Boogie Woogie

.

 

[George Mann]

Back in the good old days of Kodachrome and Pan-X, it was about seeing the world through my creative vision. But these days, its more about how the world looks with the current emulsions thru my various lenses.

 

[removed account4]

Another way for me to make art.

^^^
That.

 

[kevs]

A way of recording things I want to remember;
A visual language;
A way of seeing;
A way of communicating / sharing my seeing;
A means of self-expression;
A set of skills;
An arts practice of sorts;
A way to waste money, time and materials;
A reason to lug equipment to locations;
A way to tell myself I'm not dead yet.

 

[hoffy]

Its the perfect mix between nostalgia, a technical exercise and art.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I do show my pictures because due to Ottawa politics only few people from my country are allowed to be in Toronto and Canada.
We are talking about mass discrimination. Same level they turned away ships with immigrants.
So, here is very many discriminated people who wants to be in Canada, but could only see my and others pictures about it.
Some of my earlier pictures and stories about Canada were stolen and replicated all other internet.
Only once I was approached by mass media to ask permissions to publish my stories about Canada.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I do show my pictures because due to Ottawa politics only few people from my country are allowed to be in Toronto and Canada.
We are talking about mass discrimination. Same level they turned away ships with immigrants.
So, here is very many discriminated people who wants to be in Canada, but could only see my and others pictures about it.
Some of my earlier pictures and stories about Canada were stolen and replicated all other internet.
Only once I was approached by mass media to ask permissions to publish my stories about Canada.

?

 

[jerrybro]

A means of totally controlling a process to achieve a specific desired result. Therapy.

 

[Pieter12]

Editing reality.

 

[flatulent1]

Photography is what motivates me to get off the couch and go for a walk.

 

[blockend]

A form of obsessive compulsion, mainly, with positive spinoffs. Like a record of the people and places I've lived among that were missed by less compulsive types. Don't overthink it is my advice, just press the shutter. Look at the shot in five to twenty years time and decide if it was any good. This is totally against current prevailing wisdom, which says take the picture and post to Instagram immediately.

 

[Arbitrarium]

Taking photos: an excuse to get off my arse.
Developing photos: an excuse to do the washing up.

But seriously, it's another creative output. It's a byproduct of wanting to get out more and explore. It's cathartic, it slows down the world a bit. Clears my head. It's therapeutic.

 

[jtk]

A form of obsessive compulsion, mainly, with positive spinoffs. Like a record of the people and places I've lived among that were missed by less compulsive types. Don't overthink it is my advice, just press the shutter. Look at the shot in five to twenty years time and decide if it was any good. This is totally against current prevailing wisdom, which says take the picture and post to Instagram immediately.

Photo is just a time sink if you don't know why you're doing it. Like Facebook.

 

[blockend]

Photo is just a time sink if you don't know why you're doing it. Like Facebook.

That isn't what I said. I said it was a compulsion, the reward for indulging it is an ongoing record of my life. Given that this is the mode in which I work, short term goals are inappropriate. Especially take, post online, review, adapt, which is the currently popular way of exhibiting work. I'm more interested in the slow evolution of the immediate environment and the people in it, including myself. I'm not a Facebook user, which is the opposite to my approach to photography.

I would be too easily influenced by people's approval and changing taste, and might get side-tracked or derailed from more useful goals.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

It's my everything, my raison d'être. I take photos to document where I've been and how I see those places. I take photographs to communicate what I felt when I was looking at those places. I make my photographs in a particular way because the method impacts the message as much as the content.

 

[awty]

A means to an end.
I want the pictures in my head on paper and this is the only way I know how. May take awhile if ever, I'm a slow learner and not sure I have the competency.