I thought it would nice to write down some of my thoughts about photography and photographs, what they mean to me, and how they make me feel.
Digital Photography
I love looking at photographs (mine and others) and taking them.
For me photography is a life long hobby that I started when I was young and have always enjoyed doing, and learning about. It’s more than a hobby it’s a love for photography and taking photographs. And learning the skills required to do it, and constantly updating them as technology moves on. Like moving from film to digital photography, and the new opportunities that has created.
I like learning how to use the new software that is available for editing photographs, and seeing what you can do with them. Having the ability to change the photograph post production has given me a new way to enjoy taking photographs, and to play about with them and how they are presented.
I love gadgets, so I get a blast out of looking at and using photography equipment. The different designs, styles and specifications of cameras are great to look at. I always want the camera or lens that’s just out of reach! Let alone all the other accessories available like flashes and filters, the list is endless and the companies know how to draw you in!
What would I like to see in this photo?
I love the challenge when taking photographs. It gives me a great feeling of satisfaction when I bring together what I know about the camera, with my choice of subject.
And the result is a good photograph (well what I think is good anyway).
And when there are mistakes – which is often.
Then I want to learn from it and it urges me on to do better next time, and learn a bit more.
It’s a very creative process, and an individual expression of how you see the subject whether it’s a landscape, flower, food or animal. So that makes it exciting, trying different techniques to produce different results.
And when I create something that is completely my own and has turned out well, then that is the pay off for all the hard work – seeing the result.
I love putting my photographs on my computer and having a proper look at them and being proud of what I have created and produced. Especially now the digital age has made that process pretty much instant, instead of waiting for the developers to process the film. Ah the good old days!
What does photography mean to you?
Photography will be different for everyone as it is very individual.
What you are creating is individual to you the photographer. If we all took a photograph of the same landscape then they would all be different, as everyone would capture something different about the landscape through their own eyes.
What does Photography mean to you and how does it make you feel? Is it a job, hobby, passion or something else?
Let me know what you think in the comments…
More in part 2 coming tomorrow…
Thanks
Mandy
Hi, my name is Mandy Jones and I created the Photographer blog to help DSLR Beginners improve their photography, and get to know their camera better.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
PHOTOGRAPHY !?
photography,means so much more to me !
it’s more intersted than sumthing else !
this is my play [heheheh]my game : D
and how i love to play those diffeent camera’s !
photography .a model ,fashion !
i feel just like i’m a proffesional woman
even if i’m NOT !
Different pictures taken is equivalent to
a billions of Happiness/adventures for me : D
-live-liFe !-
memories, the people we even once knew, places, moments all fade from our minds. what is caught on film lasts a lifetime.
I come from a practical background where the purpose of knowledge was expected to have some direct application, either fixing something, building something, or will lead to a job or career that would afford a better standard of living. As a consequence, I always had jobs growing up, from mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, bagging groceries to cutting meat.
My interests were mechanical and electrical, so engineering was the only option that occurred to me. While I enjoyed music, there never was time or resources to pursue it. I lived in a linear world where there must be a correct answer to every problem.
While I took pictures from an early age with my Brownie Hawkeye camera eventually acquiring a simple 35mm in college, pictures were always a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Interest in the arts, specifically music and theatre, came through my wife. Only then did I discover some of what I had been missing.
Turning point in my world view came after reading a book on Chaos Theory. Reality is not the best-straight-line-fit drawn through data points. The interesting stuff was hanging out in the random points considered sampling error or noise to be ignored. At the core, the reality taught in engineering school was fundamentally out of focus.
The wonder at the world of quantum physics helped me see things differently and beautifully. The self-replicating patterns of chaos and the counter-intuitive behaviors of the quantum and cosmos scales continue to spark imagination and curiosity. There is so much not seen. Most of reality is not seen.
ADD and age conspire to overwhelm me with input. A single conversation cannot be separated from multiple conversations in a room. A fire hose of visual data streams into the human eye at a rate that 95% of it has to be disregarded so we can process the familiar fraction remaining.
Ahh, finally the camera.
When looking through the lens of the camera, I am able to see through that window without the distraction of all the surroundings. As the camera is focused, I am focused. The place and moment in time can be explored in depth with every blink of the shutter. And editing images on the computer further allows discovery of details not appreciated before.
So the parable of Jesus rubbing a little spittle and dirt in the eyes of the blind man is better understood. Photography is becoming a better way of seeing.
Click!
@xhyankenxai – thanks for sharing
@Katie – how true I’ve always felt that a photograph can capture a moment in a way that nothing else can!
@Day – I love the way you feel focused with the camera and distractions don’t get in the way, thanks for sharing your story it was great to read!
I came to the United State four years ago with a panicked mood. I spend seventeen years for this purpose. I was born and grew up in a middle class family. My parents had Associate of Art degrees, and my mother was a successful woman. She has many gold medals for photography. Now her Artistic Photography Association has been continuing activity in California. You can find some information about that at website: http://www.apavietnam.org/home/. That is also the answer for the question “Why did I want to study more about photography?”
I have known about photography since I was seven years old. My mother often brought me with her in her Photography exercises. I also knew about film, camera, lens, light in studio and chemical, paper in dark room. However, my country had a political changing in 1975. My family lost everything, even our honor under governance of a communistic group; my mother did not give up, and she continued to work in order to become a photography teacher in 1978. She taught so many students; I was one of them.
Socialist communist do not have a place for any talent. That is why I must to go to the United States, not for me, but for my children. When I come to this country, my English was not good, and I started with ESL class at Clark College. And now, everything makes more sense to me which is the gift of Clark College and the United States government. Therefore, I want to choose my subject for final project as “Clark College Four Season”. In the first day in the United States, I did not have enough money for a good camera. I took those pictures with Panasonic Lumix 7.0 camera; because I cannot stop hearing the “click” of a camera. For me, photography is my mother, patience, and to be successful in art. My mother died in 2001; but her example will always live in my mind.
My project is eight pictures which I took at Clark College. Some pictures were taken before, another I just took in this fall. All of those pictures become my artwork “Clark College Four season.” I usually use aperture priority mode with A: 8 and diagonal composition for my pictures. Besides that, I would like to use Perspective Law in photography in order to create depth in the pictures. I also notice the foreground and background for the picture. The color also contributes one part for the emotion of the pictures. Camera angle in my picture is always parallel with the ground. White balance, sometimes auto, sometimes cloud; because most pictures are in conditions with not enough the light.
{ 1 trackback }