Why are you a photographer?

[mishuvass]

This is from 1991

[mishuvass]

This is from 1993, taken in the Big Square of Bruxelles.<div></div>

[mishuvass]

This is from 1991.<div></div>

[antoniobassiphotography]

Bob and Ron, thank you for your contribution.<P>Maria, they are beautiful, you're definitely a natural! Thank you for

sharing.

[antoniobassiphotography]

I just wanted to truly express my most sincere gratitude and appreciation to all you guys and (hopefully) the future

commentators for taking the time to leave your stories, which provides me and everybody reads this thread with inspiration

and opportunity to learn. Sometimes our passion can be overwhelmed by worries, problems of the every day life and

discourage: whenever we feel that we need a boost to find our motivation back, this is the place to be!<P><B>Thank

you</B>

[jbs]

Because sometimes; I get this "chill" from my own work. Because sometimes; I'm good at it.

[antoniobassiphotography]

Thank you Jay, that's all that matters!

[alastairmoore]

Because it's probably the only way I'll ever get on the cover of Vogue.

[sickboy666]

To get rid of all the images i've got in my head. To make my nightmares come true. To catch the smile of a child. To grant people with the beauty of some women/men. To forget that the world of my dreams will never exist.

And above all, to escape the fat reality...

[antoniobassiphotography]

<B>Alastair</B>, good luck with the cover of Vogue ;-)<P><B>Christophe</B>, you sound like somebody that takes

photography very seriously, actually you sound like photography has taken you very seriously! Thank you.

[www.roelandebruijn.nl]

Good question.

 

With me it started as a birthday gift. My family gave me a workshop to learn the basics of photography in. I learned to use a darkroom and the basics of light and composition.

 

After I got really interested and my pictures had improved some, I took the next big step and bought a DSLR. Since a year I am shooting weddings with it. It is a blast.

 

But the question remains why I photograph. It is because I feel very much alive when I do, and the moment when you first look at your pictures on pc. Oh my, if I succeeded in getting that moment, that single defining moment of the day, goosebumps all over, and maybe even an unshed tear in the corner of my eye ;)

 

I also like the moment the couple sees the photos for the first time. I am sure I will start making photos from other situations then weddings, but right now this is what I want to do.

 

For a defining moment such as I am talking about please look at next 2 links:

 

http://www.roelanddebruijn.nl/

 

http://www.roelanddebruijn.nl/trouwerij_dennie_sabine.htm

 

Thanks Antonio for asking this question, it makes me wanna go outside and start shooting.

[antoniobassiphotography]

Roeland, thank you for your contribution. By the way, your pictures are great, I really liked them. I had some thoughts about them but this is not the place for critique so I will leave a few comments on your PN portfolio.

[www.roelandebruijn.nl]

Antonio,

 

I would love to hear your feedback. I do not have a portfolio here, so I do not know if you will be able to leave a comment somewhere on this site.

 

You can either 'fogeddaboudit' (fake Italian accent/Mickey Blue Eyes) or maybe email me: 'info@roelanddebruijn.nl'.

 

Thanks in advance, all feedback is welcome, it makes me think --> thinking is good for taking better photos.

[jeremygray]

I'm afraid I haven't managed to read all of the posts above me, as time simply does not permit. But, I figured I'd throw

my $.02 in regardless.

 

I started photography in early 2007 when I was 15 because my brother had a "big camera" and I wanted one too. Little

did I know, I was going to become engulfed in photography within a year of that. At 16 I saved up the entire summer to

get a better body and I ended up getting a D300 in the winter. And then some tragic things happened in my life in January of this year and I

was pretty much left to my camera for company, for solace. That probably sounds ridiculous, but my camera was always there to take my

mind off things. What started as a way to one-up my brother became a passion. My camera has been in my hands through the ups and

downs of this year, and not a single person has been able to pull off such a feat (not necessarily their fault, haha).

 

To sum it up; I'm a photographer because it's one of the few things in my life that always feels like the right thing to be.

[Allen Herbert]

I'm afraid I haven't managed to read all of the posts above me, as time simply does not permit. But, I figured I'd throw my $.02 in regardless.

 

Shame really some interesting posts you must have missed.

 

Thankfully you had time to post your thoughts.

[antoniobassiphotography]

<B>Roeland</B>, I will sure email you my thoughts as soon as I have a good hour to focus on it. <P><B>Jeremy</B>, I

loved your post and I also suggest you read the others when you have some time because it surely is a great way to spend

a half hour. <P><B>Allen</B>, thanks.

[kristina_kraft]

...and I forgot to tell. All good things came to me by a CHANCE. It's a great universal force. If you follow happenings in your life, you can find how great universal forces act on us.

 

I forgot to add how by a chance five years ago I got a camera set from my friend and colleague who is an amateur. That was time when I began to photograph seriously and devoted. Five years later, this year, it happened that I got a gift in a form of a nice digital camera from my other friend.

I photograph for calendars thus having created my author calendars "Leonarda Vidanne". Of course, you can read about me in my portfolio. And my calendars came as a chance too.

 

Reading your thread, I've just recognized that I became a photographer by chance. I never planned anything because I don't like to keep a lot of things in my mind. I like to do the right thing now or in the near future.

It is also a hard way meaning you can become burned too.

[antoniobassiphotography]

<B>Kristina</B><P>I completely understand what you mean and I very much agree with the chance idea, my passion was

also triggered twice by having a camera put in my hands by someone else...

[jpo3136b]

Photography is the most gentle form of illustration.

 

It is light writing; writing with light. The light can show more detail; it can surprise you with lines that it can draw; you

were there and you did not notice that shape; your mind filtered it out. When you see the picture made, there is

discovery. I like to paint and draw; but photography is the most gentle form of illustration.

 

As a kid, I ended up, by accident, in a Photography class; probably the only good thing that happened to me in school

that year. To my complete surprise, my mother gave me a camera and a lens as a gift. I have used this camera ever

since. I have taken it with me parachuting, traveling, deep sea fishing, overland on many hikes. It still works. I dropped

it once; got it repaired; kept on making pictures with it.

 

I took pictures of: sunrises, sunsets, clouds, weather, sports, animals, flowers, trees, my family and my first girlfriend.

It was there with me when I turned 21. I was holding it over my head as I was chest deep in water, crossing a stream in

a forest. My buddy said, "Hey! It's your twenty-first birthday!" I had forgotten. I was taking pictures with my camera.

 

I like everything about photography: the physical and intellectual challenges, the adventure, the discovery, the math, the

chemistry and the illustrations. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to share those pictures. I probably won't ever give it up.

[antoniobassiphotography]

Thank you John, interesting perspective

[michaellinder]

I don't see myself as an anything, other than a person. For a living, I currently regulate the taxicab and limousine

industries for a government agency. I play music, watch movies, and spend too much time in the gym (with

diminishing returns). What constitutes a person is something for another discussion at another time.

 

I do photography. It is an activity, like the activities mentioned above. To conduct this activity, I use several devices -

a camera, a computer, and some software. Other persons have designed and constructed these devices. They are

not exclusively for me; they are also for other persons engaging in the same activity. However, my engaging in this

activity involves the imposition of my consciousness on what is purported to be an external reality. I would like to

think that I impose my consciousness on other levels of my consciousness so that photography becomes a self-

reflective activity. Perhaps it has elements of both.

 

Accounting for what led me to engage in photography is, I suspect, similar to what others have stated above. And I

do apologize for not reading them all. (I really like the honesty expressed by several posters in saying "I can't draw

sh*t.") I do have early memories of an uncle whose memory I really cherish spending lots of time with a light meter

and a camera. Although I am not sure of this, I think he's the one who gave me my very first camera (age 12 or 13,

perhaps) - an Ansco box camera. Another uncle gave me what I prized until acquiring my first SLR, a camera with

an "electric eye". Perhaps I have stayed with photography for so long (having just celebrated the 31st anniversary of

my 30th birthday) to honor them, since I did not grow up with a father.

 

I cannot remember the first time I looked at a photograph with fascination. I would rather look at an artful photograph

than anything else produced through a visual medium. Photography has helped me to look at the world with greater

fascination. I do believe that beauty does not exist only in the eye of the beholder. It exists independently of the

eye and, therefore, of the camera. My wife has sometimes asked me whether I should put down my camera in order

to better experience a mountain lake, or a newborn infant, or the changing faces of water. My response has been,

and is, that photography does not detract from these experiences. It does not prevent me from having the

experiences firsthand. Rather, it intensifies them. It enables me to get inside them. As a noted phenomenologist

(Edmund Husserl) noted, it enables me to get back to the experiences themselves.

 

Antonio, I think I can speak for everyone who already have responded in thanking you for providing the opportunity.

We can spend countless hours commenting on lighting and exposure and color saturation. This helps us learn more

about our craft. But it does not necessarily help us learn about ourselves. Enough said.

 

michael

[lovcom_photo]

I do it primarily for these reasons, and in the highest to lowest reasons:

 

1. To document my life.

2. To refresh my memories when they start to fail.

3. To prove that I was a good man, husband and father.

4. To do something artistic, tangible, and fun. To keep me interested in living.

5. To make $$ by shooting weddings.

[bigmanjohnson]

I didn't really get into photography until high school, Junior year. Took a photography class because i basically always wanted to know how to take good pictures with creative shots and so forth. One picture I took off of the roof of my truck of the rest of the street as a perfect reflection, slightly distorted off of the roof of my vehicle of course, was very interesting to everyone. If you turned it upside down it had people thinking of which way the orientation was supposed to be because it was a perfect 50/50 split and the paint is blue. I submitted it, upside down in a large format (i think it was 2x3 feet or something similar) because of my photography teacher to the DARE photography contest and they purchased my work for $25. While that at first was just $17 because the teacher took some money for the white backing I used that barely filled up a half tank back in 06 I came to realize that i enjoyed photography for other's pleasure, the satisfaction that my work brings happiness to others.

 

it also gives me something to do with all this free time I got, since studying for most of these community college classes seems like a waste of time when I already know most of the material.

[antoniobassiphotography]

<B>Michael, Dan, Tyler</B>, thanks for your contribution.

[jamesulness]

I never liked photography, it was boring. I studied Theater and Film, it was not boring.

it was 2001, I had a long walk from the Collage to work every day and I would stop and look at things on my way.

One day I stopped and bought a little point and shoot to take pictures of the things I saw (still thinking

photography was boring but thinking that some of the things I saw were kind of cool)

<br />

Then my girlfriend's ex threatened to kill me which resulted in me dropping out of School and had to quit my job.

After that life kind of went into a spiral.

<br />

One Christmas I was trying to think of what to get people for gifts and I remembered some of the pictures I had

taken. Some of them were pretty good so I thought it would be fun to take pictures and have them printed and

framed. So I went to a pawn shop and bought a Maxxim 7000 (which I still have) and with no idea how to use the

thing I set out to take pictures. Looking back I'm not sure how I managed to get anything good out of it, I

didn't know how to change the settings let alone what they were! Thank god it was in Program when I bought it.

<br />

After Christmas the camera went on a shelf and collected dust. My life was still in a rather steep downward

spiral at the time and I was too busy having a mental breakdown to bother with it. But the seed was in my head

and the next Christmas my parent's called me and asked me what I wanted. I replied with the first thing that came

into my head "a digital camera" which I got (a fuji fine pix) along with a photo printer.

<br />

I ran around playing with my new toy and soon built up a small collection of pictures. Still not being really

serious about photography I put them up on <a href="http://flappybat.deviantart.com/gallery/">Deviant Art</a> and

went on with my life which at this point was mainly me sitting alone in my apartment and having panic attacks.

<br />

This went on for a while and then one day my head cleared for a moment and I had a chance to look at my life. You

can probably guess by now that I didn't like what I saw. I was stuck in a job that was going nowhere (which I

would probably get fired from if I didn't stop scaring people with my emotional outbursts) I lived alone in a

little hole where nobody could find me. I decited that the first step to getting out of this was to go back to

school so I picked up a collage course list and started thumbing through it. Photography was still just a was to

occupy my time at that point. My SLR was somewhere in a closet and I didn't think of it as anything more than

something to do when I was bored. But when I got to the photography program Something clicked in my brain and I

said to myself "I can do that." Not even realizing what "that" was. So before I had a chance to change my mind I

got a loan from the bank and I dusted off my SLR and went off to school.

<br />

It was the best thing I could have done at the time. I fell in love with photography. Every time I learned

something new it was like discovering a new planet.<br />

I still had panic attacks and emotional glitches (it would be a couple of years still before I started to take

care of that) but photography was the start of my mental healing... It's been a long couple of years.