What make you photograph?

<p>Darn, I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I came to it a few years ago so I could do some product photography for my next history book. I chose to do it and not burden a friend with the task which I could not afford to pay him for the work. What are friends for?</p>

<p><br />The photography work for the book is not done. But there have been lots of diversions into other areas that have entranced me. Ultimately, my photography turned to capturing anything I found beautiful or interesting. To document the moment comes to mind too. What really set me off was driving over the third Tacoma Narrows bridge during its construction one late afternoon. The colors of everything lit up by the sun was amazing and the sky was filled with large cottenball clouds lit up like a Maxfield Parrish painting - though he seemed to prefer thunderheads in his paintings. Photography began to satisfy my artistic inner self but when I started to get finished prints that satisfied my demanding eye. And people like my images. Those are the moments I look forward to. I just with I had more time to work on the raw files and the pictures completed.</p>

<p>CHEERS...Mathew</p>

<p>Enjoying well done job makes me happy. Magic of fixed moment drives me again and again. That's why I pick up camera, think of image and press the shutter button. Money and other profit is nearly secondary, what makes me shooting. Most important things are well done job and magic of the fixed moment is primary reason.</p>

<p>So many things drove me to pick up a camera, in the begining it was maybe just for fun with my friends as a teenager, then i bought my first SLR, and as i´m a graphic designer, all the way trough college i was always the one taking pictures, i like illustrating as well but photography has always been my passion, i think i picked up graphic design because of that, nowadays i´ve tried to go further as a photographer maybe with a different point of view but i still have that old exciting feeling when i grab my camera and start shooting LOL, somebody comented before that it is therapeutical and i totaly agree(although not that much when you are working).</p>

<p>I'm too short to play basketball.</p>

<h3>Charcoal Portraits From Photos</h3>

<p>Today many art studios offer <a href="http://www.painting4ever.com/charcoal-portraits.html">charcoal portraits</a> from your photos. You can provide them with any photo and they will transform it into a charcoal drawing. The most commong photos which can be used are of people, pets and animals. A charcoal artist can also draw a landscape photo. However, most people prefer other mediums for their landscape photos</p><div></div>

<p>Very sound questions, Dan. I don't think I can actually pinpoint the innate quality, which made me pick up a camera and not let go again. Perhaps it is connected to the act of observing. I seem to see a little clearer with my camera in hand. Notice a little more, as I go along. There's definitely also some sort of communicative element in there, somewhere. Being able to tell something without using a thousand words.<br>

As for the second part of the question, I mostly just pick up my camera and go to an area, which I might find interesting, and look at what there is to shoot. Sometimes, however, I find myself imagining a certain picture, and I pursue just that. This only happens rarely, though.</p>

<p>I like making things. Whether the starting point is a bottle of liquor, I was a bartender. Or, a bottle of spaghetti sauce, I like to eat. Or, a roll of film, I like to shoot everything manual and make a picture.</p>

<p>I rarely shoot "on purpose". As someone wrote earlier, it's like going fishing. Sometimes I end up with a few keepers. Sometimes I make blunders. But in the end, I like trying anyway.</p>

<p>It's the doing I enjoy. Therapy maybe. But, more often, it's not because of something, but because I have the state of mind and time to do it. Then, I give that opportunity to photography.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sometimes I prefer to observe rather than participate....</p>

<p>Like several people said earlier...I can't draw or paint. Actually for me its something I can not quite put a finger on a sort of intangible its just something I started doing at a very young age and never really out grew as I got older I wanted to get better and be more artistic and say something with it. Another part of the equation for me is I enjoy sharing what I see from day to day that others may miss or just pass by with out noticing it.<br>

Part two of it for me is feeling a connection or fascination of some sort with the subject(s) and catching that on film (or the disc since I shoot both film and digital). In the end I hope that the same connection or fascination comes out in it and that viewer of the image feels that same thing I felt when I took the picture. </p>