Utata Question: Why do we photograph what we photograph?
My reply:
When I was in high school, I wanted to be a photographer... but film, developing, prints, equipment, it was all so expensive. I've never been fluid enough to afford the consumables to persue my photographic passion.
Eventually, digital photography came along and I shelled out a couple hundred dollars for a little point-and-shoot and rejoiced in the availability and immediacy of images! I could take, see, keep and - first with Fotolog and then Flickr - share my images! The constraints of my point and shoot forced me to learn how to 'get the shot', meaning work with what I have to catch the image I had in mind...
Fortune smiled on me in the form of a new friend who shares visions in this forum - meaning Flickr - and gave me a gift. Many gifts, actually. More than the excellent secondhand camera that came in the box, but the technology to capture the exact images I envision, and catch the serendipitous moments that happen all around me, and the support, encouragement and generosity of spirit that is shared here in this community.
And Flickr! Where would our photographs be without this amazing place? Some would get published and/or exhibited, some would go on to become professional photographers, but for most of us, our images would languish in albums and shoe boxes and living room walls...rarely visited, hardly shared.
I am not learning photography, per se, I am learning to see. The exciting part for me is being able to see how and what you see, too.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
The Dance
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3 comments:
I started taking photos to rember things, places, colors, yep I got a really bad visual memory.
Very well said!! The sharing on FLICKR is what I find so intoxicating. Through FLICKR I can travel widely and look through a million (more or less) lenses at what other people think is important (or at least interesting). I learn a little bit about the people themselves, too.
I really should be going but I had to say you took the words out of my mouth re: Seeing. I just started shooting a little over two years ago and my consciousness is radically changed from the experience of learning to see. I think about this kind of think a lot. More later. Really , my camera calls.
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