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Why did you become a photographer?
With the beginning of a new year and a time of reflection, this is a great question. For me, I thought about this last summer. My goal, back then, was to get more wedding and portrait assignments. I soon became overwhelmed with editing and found myself spending more time at the computer editing, than out there shooting.
I'm getting ahead of myself...
Like many of us, my parents took us kids out camping and exploring the outdoors. My father was an avid amateur photographer with the bin of slides to prove it. Hiking on the trails throughout Yosemite and Mammoth, many times it was just me and my camera. The camera was a tool that helped to slow me down, to appreciate the little things around me and the quality of light. As I got older, driving along the coast of Highway 1 in California, it helped me stop, make a u-turn and make a photograph of something I would have kicked myself for not making. Many times we're busy, on our way someplace with a Formula Race car driver mentality, but a camera reminds us that there are more important things than beating the clock.
There are many reasons why I became a photographer:
1. Appreciation of everything; nature, beauty, people, friends my life and my time
2. It gets me outside, with the fresh air and smells of outdoors
3. It gets me in front of people, socializing
4. It challenges me
5. It keeps me interested in life and everything it has to offer
6. It has a definite "cool factor". I'm proud to tell people I'm a photographer
7. It helps me to express myself like only art and music only can
8. It's something I can share with my friends and family
9. It's unique. This is the way I see the world, based on my own life experiences, this is how I see it.
10. It helps me capture a moment that I may forget.
11. It helps me to connect with my family by getting us outside and cherishing our memories together.
So, those are some of the reasons why I became a photographer. It's been a fun, challenging and extremely rewarding ride...but something is changing, a paradigm shift maybe. Digital photography happened, thank you. Now we have many more photographers out there, pushing us, challenging us. We're creating better images and more of them...yikes.
Why did you become a photographer?
I'm getting ahead of myself...
Like many of us, my parents took us kids out camping and exploring the outdoors. My father was an avid amateur photographer with the bin of slides to prove it. Hiking on the trails throughout Yosemite and Mammoth, many times it was just me and my camera. The camera was a tool that helped to slow me down, to appreciate the little things around me and the quality of light. As I got older, driving along the coast of Highway 1 in California, it helped me stop, make a u-turn and make a photograph of something I would have kicked myself for not making. Many times we're busy, on our way someplace with a Formula Race car driver mentality, but a camera reminds us that there are more important things than beating the clock.
There are many reasons why I became a photographer:
1. Appreciation of everything; nature, beauty, people, friends my life and my time
2. It gets me outside, with the fresh air and smells of outdoors
3. It gets me in front of people, socializing
4. It challenges me
5. It keeps me interested in life and everything it has to offer
6. It has a definite "cool factor". I'm proud to tell people I'm a photographer
7. It helps me to express myself like only art and music only can
8. It's something I can share with my friends and family
9. It's unique. This is the way I see the world, based on my own life experiences, this is how I see it.
10. It helps me capture a moment that I may forget.
11. It helps me to connect with my family by getting us outside and cherishing our memories together.
So, those are some of the reasons why I became a photographer. It's been a fun, challenging and extremely rewarding ride...but something is changing, a paradigm shift maybe. Digital photography happened, thank you. Now we have many more photographers out there, pushing us, challenging us. We're creating better images and more of them...yikes.
Why did you become a photographer?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Todd on -
This is a very good question and one I never thought about. I think my first interest in photography came from my grandfather when he gave me my first camera,a Kodak Brownie, From there, I bought a Canon AT-1 35mm and started taking pictures for a weekly flyer at a local dragstrip,a family owned business, I grew up with greats such as Big Daddy Don Garlits and Cha Cha Muldowney. I was also one of four photographers that got clubbered by the fiberglass body of a jet car that came off near the finish line. A few bruises and scratches but what fantastic pictures. Too young to get out of the way, too ambitous to stop shooting.
I ended up being the first high school freshman to take photography, a junior and senior course. Great instructor that thought to push me further that any other student. A lot of darkroom work with 3' and 35mm negatives and slides. Tri-X Pan,B & W and infrared film and pushing the ASA for local newspapers. This was only the beginning. I then enlisted in the Marines to be a Combat Photographer but ended up using it in the Intelligence field with tours to Southeast Asia in the early 1980's. I was using five different cameras for different purposes. I even had one that I use to jump with. One was a Russian Panoramic 35mm that was extremely good.
This lead to surveillance work in the law enforcement fields and again as an investigator before retirement. It sounds like a great background for a photographer but I've either considered it a duty or like today, a hobby.
After all these years, I think about my late grandfather and his stories about how many GI's during WWII would lug cameras around with them and be more worried about that camera than themselves. I still remember some of the old black and white pictures that he took during the war. Pictures of buddies,places and military life in general. I guess it's something that was handed down to me but nothing that I've ever tried to make a living with. I have thousands of good pictures that I've been a little shy to post here and I've been trying to stay on topic with here. Maybe others here will share their passion for photography as I have here and how they got here. Mahalo for starting this thread and sharing your roots to photography.
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