Why rather than How we make photographs

c6h6o3 · Jul 9, 2005

Will S said:
I think I read that in either "Photography Past Forward: Aperture At 50" or "Documentary and Anti-graphic Photographs" I can't remember which. I have the "Man, Image, World" too, but I don't think it is in there.

Sorry I can't be more precise.

Will

He touches on some of the principles in The Decisive Moment but doesn't mention the book or the author by name.

anyte · Jul 10, 2005

blaze-on said:
I honestly wasn't going to add to this thread as I have (often) realized the effort to understand certain things can bring unwanted results.
That's why I gave up try to "understand" women...

Your unwanted results with women comes as a result of there being nothing to "understand". We're all too different to fit under the same umbrella and there is no "feminine" mystique to us. That's an old wives tale created by men that don't want to take certain responsibilities.

I don't think I'll ever understand men.

wfe · Jan 4, 2007

I was introduced to “Art and Fear” over three years ago and I return to it often. While I have made photographs for over twenty years it has only been the past five years that I have been serious about it. My photographs over the past five years have been random, all over the place and it has only been recently that I realized that my photography needs to be about people and life. Life is very important to me and we humans are incredible living beings with extraordinary abilities. The most valuable thing photography has brought into my life are the people that I have met. It is not always about the people that I photograph but is also about the people I meet. Both my subjects and friends have brought so much to my life and enriched it in ways I can’t describe. So for me it is about connecting with people and my insatiable need to continue on this road. If I can connect with someone and make a photograph that says something about the two of us or either one of us, that is my reward and why I do it. It has and continues to teach me about myself and life in general.

BTW, Les is a person I have met through photography.

Cheers,
Bill

catem · Jan 4, 2007

Bill,

Your post reminds me of E.M.Forster - "only connect..."

that's a huge amount of what photography's about.

Also, for me part of it's about dealing with - and/or recording - in various ways, loss and mortality, but not only in relation to people, making a picture gives a permanence and solidity that in a way allows me to thumb my nose at the inevitable, and to explore the nature of permanence/instability - usually in a very personal way....The personal nature is not a specific intention but seems to be the way it happens...even with landscapes, which I've been doing recently, it's about exploring the area I grew up - it's about doing this while I am able, about returning home, about telling stories, as many as I can....before for whatever reason it's too late

though reading through what I've written that does make it all sound a lot heavier than it really is - in fact it's lots of fun

eclarke · Jan 4, 2007

I have no idea and have no desire to understand why I do it....I just do it..EC

TheFlyingCamera · Jan 4, 2007

The why is that it is an antidote to everything else crappy and mundane in my life that I am forced to do repetitively in order to survive. It gives me an opportunity to surround myself with beauty, and to create a document of that beauty so that someone else might one day see the same thing I saw in the object, place or person that I photographed, and share that reaction. It also helps to compensate for having a big enough ego that I think someone else might WANT to see the world the way I do.

johnnywalker · Jan 4, 2007

Because I enjoy doing something creative, and I would like to leave something on this earth that is important to someone, even if only my own family. I suppose one could do the same with a fine woodworking or butterfly-collecting hobby, but I happen to enjoy the process of photography, whether or not I have any gift for it.

Vaughn · Jan 4, 2007

The why...

I photograph as a way to learn how to better see. I print as a way to share what I have learned so far.

I am printing alt processes using camera negatives. I use this approach as a way to force/challange myself to see more intensly as I photograph...no cropping or other image manipulation other than exposure & development, and "straight" contract printing (pt/pd printing and carbon printing -- lots of controls there, of course.)

Of course there is the joy of being outside photographing and then the satisfaction and ego thing of making a fine print, but the above are the main reasons.

Vaughn

PatTrent · Jan 4, 2007

I could state reasons, but I'm not sure they would be true, so I can only state what I know.

I photograph because I am compelled to do so. From a very young age and all through my life I have been *in love* with cameras, and at times obsessed with a particular camera.

To me a camera is a magic wand--it's used to create magic.

The magic is seeing the image on the film as I hang it up to dry, as well as seeing the image emerge in the darkroom as I rock the paper in a tray of developer.

My subject matter is diverse, but the magic remains constant. Even when I have been too busy, too tired, too ill, etc., to photograph, I know that my cameras are there waiting for me.

Magic. I can't explain it.

Pat

eclarke · Jan 4, 2007

I am aging ungracefully and tend not to analyze anything nowdays. I seem to have three types of feelings, ambivalent (95%), unpleasant and pleasant. Photographing gives me a pleasant feeling....EC

JustK · Jan 4, 2007

I love the book Art & Fear, and it is great to read this thread, and to reflect, especially at this time of year. I have a hard time expressing myself verbally and originally (therefore I photograph), but I would like to share a few quotes that resonate with why I photograph:

"All of my photographs are equivalents of my basic philosophy of life." Alfred Steiglitz

"Camera as a way of life... is still the least impossible way for me to develop and maintain a state that I can call mine." Minor White

"Photographing is the transforming art of the photographer." Minor White

"Art is alchemy... It turns the ore of life into gold..." Julia Cameron

"Art is a spiritual practice... Creativity is a form of prayer..." Julia Cameron

Blessings to All,
Krystyna

SusanK · Jan 5, 2007

I photograph because there are only so many things that I can draw by tracing the shape of my hand.

Curt · Jan 5, 2007

I am in the middle of a severe illness and about all I feel like doing is retrospect and read. I am half way though EWs Daybooks and have several DVDs, AA, BW, EW, and more on the way. It's interesting how Stieglitz is a pivot for so many photographers of that period. I was told early on that I need to know the history of photography, have a working knowledge of Art and Artists of other mediums and have enough life experiences and know suffering before I can gain an independent voice of my own. It's taken a long time to do what I want to do instead of doing what I think is expected. I find it interesting that some artists create in a handful of years what others take a lifetime to accomplish. I photograph because I have the need and the drive to create something unique that is mine alone. We are all influenced and there is no way to get around it but in photography there is enough room to develop a style or finger print that is unique to the individual. I keep a journal, write poetry and draw in addtion to photography. It keeps my interest in design active.

davetravis · Jan 5, 2007

I didn't chose photography, it chose me.
I shoot, therefore I am.
I tried painting, and failed.
I tried music, and failed.
I tried writting and failed.
Nature revealed itself to me, and I responded, in the only way I could.
DT

Chuck_P · Jan 5, 2007

When I see a photograph that holds my attention and makes me want to wish that I could have been there when it was made, I must admit that I would first be interested in the "how" aspect of the effort, continuing on with the "how" in film development and the "how" in printing and processing.

I believe the "how" aspect of the effort must be mastered first before the "why" aspect can really be expressed------expressed visually, I mean, in the final print rather than verbally, that is, by the photographer. I'm trying to learn how I can better be able to express why I am photographing.

I don't believe that I could ever verbally attach words to why I photograph something---I am asked that all the time by mostly, family members. "Why did you photograph that?" I have yet to be able to provide a satisfactory answer---to my self or to them, " I just did", I would say. But, when I look at a photograph that I have produced that I am pleased with (and that's not too frequent, but it does happen), the answer, most always, becomes blatantly clear-----If only they could read my mind.

Arglebargle · Jan 5, 2007

All of my life I've been a walker, I love solitude and exploring and contemplating. I also have always been interested in computers, especially Photoshop. My skills landed me a job in the photo department of a newspaper. I decided since I was working on photographs for a living I should know a bit more than what I did about photography. Furthermore I needed something to be consumed with so I could sober up a bit. A creative outlet. Photography gets me out of the house, relieves stress (sometimes), gives me a hobby, keeps me from killing too many more brain cells, and provides me with some goals and dreams to achieve in the future.

Doyle Thomas · Jan 5, 2007

After technical proficiency has been achieved, the next step involves an understanding of the reasons to make Photographs and the thought process that leads there. Pictures are taken with the camera but Photographs are made with the Mind. This site is devoted then, not to the development of film, but rather, the development of the Mind.
www.primaryfocusphoto.com

copake_ham · Jan 5, 2007

I'm not a particularly artistic person. I've never studied art and can't even draw respectable stick men.

I'm more verbal than quantitative but also numerate; so I work in the banking business as a lawyer. Nothing at all would suggest why I photograph.

Except....

I am also very visually observant. When I am walking or driving down the street it is like I'm watching a movie. I scan and seek looking both for overall context and also specific images.

Photography is my way of taking "stills" of the movie that is running through my head as I wander through life.

SuzanneR · Jan 6, 2007

I think we've all struggled to put the "why's" into words. I kept coming up with cliches... though stopping time seems to be about as good a motivator as I can find.

I've posted a photograph in the standard gallery that illustrates my motive nicely. It's the one titled "Granny and her Children".

removed account4 · Jan 6, 2007

i think part of the reason is to help save some sort
of passing memory, whether it is a feeling, or a place or a person.
since my memory is not very good, the photographs
work as a mechanism to help me remember who what when where how ...
another part of this is to help me understand who i am and where i come from,
and to learn a little bit about how other people live their lives.
unless it is a family snapshot ( which we somehow have 52 photo albums of .. )
whenever i photograph someone (or something) i learn about them:
who they are, who they were ... and it helps me come to a deeper understanding of who i am ..

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Jan 7, 2007

I think there's something pretty in my head, and I'd like other people to see that too. I tried drawing, but realised most of the pretty things were sitting in front of me, it was just about showing them to people the right way. So, I take photos, and hope that other people see something pretty as well.

Woolliscroft · Jan 8, 2007

I guess I am lucky here. As an archaeological photographer my "why" is simple: to record data. I only have to worry about the "how" and, to a lesser extent the "when".

David.

alien · Jan 8, 2007

Hello all!

I take pictures as they serve me as a diary.

I also found that the pictures of the 'normal' things and happenings are treasured me and others most - for example I took pictures in class in the final years when going to school, and I have been the only one to do so. Not pictures of people posing, but pictures of people sitting in class, of teachers teaching etc. At the time, this was so normal that nobody botherer photographing it.

This is also the reason why I am not in any way or form interested in digital - a lot of pictures would have been deleted from me, because they appeared to be not suitable at the time (slightly out of focus etc). Now however, they show people who have long gone, or places or happenings nobody has bothered recording....so a lack of technical quality does not really matter when it comes to these images.

I never had the ambition to be published or sell pictures, but the nice thing is that people like my images, and sometimes ask for prints - and even pay!!!!

All the best to all

Ansgar

ehparis · Jan 8, 2007

why photograph..??

the better to see, with or without a camera...

Dave Miller · Jan 8, 2007

If I knew the answer I wouldnt need to see my psychiatrist.:confused:

Why rather than How we make photographs

c6h6o3

anyte

wfe

catem

eclarke

TheFlyingCamera

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johnnywalker

Vaughn

PatTrent

eclarke

JustK

SusanK

Curt

davetravis

Chuck_P

Arglebargle

Doyle Thomas

copake_ham

SuzanneR

Moderator

removed account4

Alex Bishop-Thorpe

Woolliscroft

alien

ehparis

Dave Miller

Why rather than How we make photographs

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