Archiver
Mentor
In order of importance:
1. to document my life
2. to gain pleasure from an art form with which I'm reasonably skilled
3. to make money
1. to document my life
2. to gain pleasure from an art form with which I'm reasonably skilled
3. to make money
Tim Murphy
Well-known
Dear Archiver,
To play on your post but edited slightly to suit my tastes and reasons.
1. to document my life, the lives of those close to me, and the natural world around me.
2. to get better at something I enjoy doing, and to improve my skills. My greatest picture will never be considered art, but hopefully it will be viewed as something well recorded and representative of the moment I witnessed so that others see the reason why.
3. to spend money! I can still make money, but I can't make time. As I consider that time may be growing short I need to find a way to have fun.
4. because every time I plan to go fishing, my one true love, a horrible storm hits a day or two earlier and renders that option moot.
5. because I enjoy it, even if no one else cares.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg PA
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
The question then becomes "What is the point of Prints?". To hang on the wall and admire?
A
AndyCapp
Guest
You touched me with this one. I went through my old pictures yesterday (on Mylio!) and was shocked at how much vitality I had lost during the last 20 years. Aging cannot be stopped, but can it at least be slowed down by exercising your grey cells?
This is what I am trying to find out here.
Be patient or ignore.
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AndyCapp
Guest
Fun is a feeling. For far too long, feelings and emotions have been ignored in scientific and theoretical writing.But what is "fun"? Another rabbit-hole question!
What makes you move? Do facts do it?
No. Their emotionally significant associations do. Advertisers and propagandists have known this for ages, but somehow, this knowledge has escaped the academic community. Read, for instance, Kahneman's 'Noise', which sheds light on how little rational thinking goes into high-level decision-making in the judiciary or economic institutions. Kahneman is a Nobel laureate in economics.
How do you know when to eat, or when to take a pee –or what is fun?
You feel it.
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AndyCapp
Guest
I just ordered a wet print from my Belgian friend Patrick Van den Branden.
He uses these ancient doghouse cameras with huge lenses, petrifies his modes for 15-second exposures, and cooks the paper in sauces with mystical ingredients, including coffee and tea. His prints smell great and look even better. Patrick has a book out; you can order it here. I did already.
You can see Patrick at work here.
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A
AndyCapp
Guest
In my terminology, emotion is a body state, and feeling is what affects us whether we acknowledge it or not.
Erik van Straten
Mentor
Just fun to do it.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Lot’s of answers in these ads:
www.saturdayeveningpost.com
Vintage Advertising: Kodak Cameras from 1901-1965 | The Saturday Evening Post
In 1888, George Eastman was granted a patent for a dry-plate camera, and for the first time, photography became available to nearly everyone.
www.saturdayeveningpost.com
peterm1
Mentor
I have always had an impulse to create art. As a kid I drew and painted a lot but put this aside as an adult when work, marriage and life in general took over. Now retired, I can revisit my childhood aspirations to be an artist. I almost always attempt to insert some kind of artistic "jiggery pokery" into my photography as I find plain photography not much to my taste. In this respect I find inspiration in the early work of the likes of Belgian pictorialist photographer, Leonard Missone or the color work of Saul Leiter and others who had a distinct artistry in their photography.
A
AndyCapp
Guest
I went to see your Flickr. You take beautiful pictures, which I highly appreciate. You've got it, the "je ne sais pas quoi." I like the way you use pastel colors, and how you selectively enhance and brighten the main points.
I am jealous of artists, as I am only a romantic who can read manuals. Artistry is something people are born with. It is like the musical ear; it cannot be taught. Some people run fast or jump very high; those are talents, too.
I am happy that you finally let your artist out. Courage!
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Charlie Lemay
Well-known
I used to tell my students, “Don’t make the images we’ve all seen before. Make the images, that if you don’t make them, no one lese will ever get to see.”
pseudobreccia
Member
My initial post is self explanatory.
Retro-Grouch
Mentor
At my age, The Bladder Never Sleeps!
It seems that we are alike in that we both can't resist the impulse to turn everything into a philosophical inquiry (What is "fun?"). It's not a trait that those who know me always find endearing, often finding me to be "no fun". But in a world where every looney of every persuasion is exhorting you to think and do as they say, pausing to ask what something means has a high survival value. I'm not really being facetious or flippant in suggesting that we ask ourselves why something is fun. Self-examination can be valuable and, er, fun.
ellisson
Well-known
To walk and be surprised. To be aware of and delighted in something, be it a joyful smile from a new acquaintance, an act of kindness, or an unusual juxtaposition of light, shadow and object that inspires my imagination. To interact with and create memories of these things.
Mos6502
Well-known
As a wise man once said: if I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand.
boojum
Mentor
0
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
Clever you are indeed, Mr Andy Capp, to have started this thread. And baited the hook for us to nibble at your tasty bait.
Like most of us, I take photographs for the joy it. Or to put it another way, for the joy I get from taking photographs.
For me, anything further by way of analysis would be to overthink it.
In various times in my long life, I've entertained thoughts (= fantasies) of becoming a 'professional' photographer, setting up a studio, specializing in this or that (everything from real estate to modeling portfolios to kids' portraits), but after having analyzed the realities of all that, I decided it wasn't worth the bother or the effort of going pro. As wiser minds than mine have often written, one should beware of turning a passion into a profession.
I own a reasonable amount of good gear. Also a small home darkroom, which once was a complete film processing-printing setup but after I retired I decided to downsize this to about 40% of what I originally owned. Alas, this 'kit' has sat unused since the Covid pandemic struck, with the exception of one or two times a year when I psych myself enough to process the rolls of (mostly long outdated) B&W films I've accumulated. I then scan the best of these - I once did the entire lot I took, but after filling up several portable hard disks with huge TIFFs of images I basically had no interest in and haven't returned to even look at since, I decided to brutally cull my 'keepers' to only the best I had taken, to be scanned mostly to email to friends or family or make an occasional print for our walls.
I have friends who thrive on Let's Pretend scenarios. They have fallen for the marketing bullcrap most camera manufacturers put out, and spent thousands, even tens of thousands, of expensive cameras and lenses to create the 'image' in their minds of being a professional. One friend built up a kit of three Olympus DSLRs and 16 lenses, then bought a 'pro' backpack large enough to carry the entire lot when she went out to capture her beloved Velveeta landscapes. A few years ago she went bushwalking with this kit and fell down a steep hill, breaking her right ankle. A year of expensive operations and a long convalescence followed. She is now back at it, limping around bush trails in the Dandenong's of Victoria (Australia), but she is doing what her heart guides her to, and she has wisely opted for a smaller (if just as expensive) 'pro' backpack with only two cameras and six or seven lenses. For her, the unending cycle of joy continues.
This may seem as if I've written her story with derision, but I well realize that almost all of us have entertained similar ideas and ideals at one time or another. Of selling photographs, running a photo business, earning one's living with cameras. Yet for most of us the reality is different. Pro fantasies, amateur realities...
Given my earlier comment about overthinking the matter, I'm aware that in writing all this I've most likely fallen into the same trap that I described. But I find that having put these thoughts into words and posted them have cleared my own thinking about my approach to, and my philosophy about, my photography.
To quote myself again, I take photographs for the joy of it. Selfish? No. Self-indulgent? Maybe, but in my view, not really. Satisfying? Yes!
So I will go on taking photographs. Until I'm no longer able to. Then a decade or more of culling, deleting, captioning, keyboarding, and (sigh) scanning, will keep me occupied until I'm 90 and most likely no longer care, if I'm still around to indulge in such pleasurable feelings.
Like most of us, I take photographs for the joy it. Or to put it another way, for the joy I get from taking photographs.
For me, anything further by way of analysis would be to overthink it.
In various times in my long life, I've entertained thoughts (= fantasies) of becoming a 'professional' photographer, setting up a studio, specializing in this or that (everything from real estate to modeling portfolios to kids' portraits), but after having analyzed the realities of all that, I decided it wasn't worth the bother or the effort of going pro. As wiser minds than mine have often written, one should beware of turning a passion into a profession.
I own a reasonable amount of good gear. Also a small home darkroom, which once was a complete film processing-printing setup but after I retired I decided to downsize this to about 40% of what I originally owned. Alas, this 'kit' has sat unused since the Covid pandemic struck, with the exception of one or two times a year when I psych myself enough to process the rolls of (mostly long outdated) B&W films I've accumulated. I then scan the best of these - I once did the entire lot I took, but after filling up several portable hard disks with huge TIFFs of images I basically had no interest in and haven't returned to even look at since, I decided to brutally cull my 'keepers' to only the best I had taken, to be scanned mostly to email to friends or family or make an occasional print for our walls.
I have friends who thrive on Let's Pretend scenarios. They have fallen for the marketing bullcrap most camera manufacturers put out, and spent thousands, even tens of thousands, of expensive cameras and lenses to create the 'image' in their minds of being a professional. One friend built up a kit of three Olympus DSLRs and 16 lenses, then bought a 'pro' backpack large enough to carry the entire lot when she went out to capture her beloved Velveeta landscapes. A few years ago she went bushwalking with this kit and fell down a steep hill, breaking her right ankle. A year of expensive operations and a long convalescence followed. She is now back at it, limping around bush trails in the Dandenong's of Victoria (Australia), but she is doing what her heart guides her to, and she has wisely opted for a smaller (if just as expensive) 'pro' backpack with only two cameras and six or seven lenses. For her, the unending cycle of joy continues.
This may seem as if I've written her story with derision, but I well realize that almost all of us have entertained similar ideas and ideals at one time or another. Of selling photographs, running a photo business, earning one's living with cameras. Yet for most of us the reality is different. Pro fantasies, amateur realities...
Given my earlier comment about overthinking the matter, I'm aware that in writing all this I've most likely fallen into the same trap that I described. But I find that having put these thoughts into words and posted them have cleared my own thinking about my approach to, and my philosophy about, my photography.
To quote myself again, I take photographs for the joy of it. Selfish? No. Self-indulgent? Maybe, but in my view, not really. Satisfying? Yes!
So I will go on taking photographs. Until I'm no longer able to. Then a decade or more of culling, deleting, captioning, keyboarding, and (sigh) scanning, will keep me occupied until I'm 90 and most likely no longer care, if I'm still around to indulge in such pleasurable feelings.
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jszokoli
Well-known
I photograph to see how I see the world. I don’t need any one else to see my pictures. It is record of my world. Some people like my pictures but that’s not my motivation.
Joe
Joe
A
AndyCapp
Guest
Appreciated!
I have spent some time reading the answers. Some prejudices were enforced, and some new logic was revealed. The most important revelation is the diversity of thinking in such a small group that, for the outsider, might seem homogenous. I am not a philosopher; it is only my head that keeps asking: "Why is it like that, and what if it weren't?" I hate philosophers who cannot tell the difference between words and things, ideas and happenings.
Can you name a philosopher who has lived during the last 50 years and whose impact is felt in modern Western culture?
(Not Derrida, Foucault, or Zizek)
I got more of this thread than probably anybody else. I thank all participants from my heart.
BTW: In more than one instance, I have noticed that people from Down Under have more sense than most.