Why do we take pictures?
Friday, 1 August 2008
Some more thoughts instigated by a piece by Paul Butzi in his blog Musings on Photography. Why do we like taking pictures? To use oil business terminology, is it the upstream front end exploring part of finding, seeing and capturing or perhaps the refining part of developing, processing and creating or maybe even the downstream, back end, retail part of showing and perhaps selling? No doubt that there are elements of each that we warm to, but which one is it that we think is most important and does the time we spend on each of these activities reflect the importance of this bit of the process?
Could we take photographs and not look at them afterwards? If not could we take photographs, allow ourselves to look at them and even work on them, but then not show them to other people?
I have a theory that part of trying to be a good photographer is that you have to be focused on the front end part of making the photograph and really not care too much about the back end part of showing it to others. If we worry about how it will look to others then we are constraining ourselves to working within known boundaries and trying to meet the contrived expectations of others.
So why is it then that I like so many others spend lots of time choosing, preparing and showing photographs on my blog? Is it because we are looking for confirmation that we are on the right track and if so, what is the right track and who's track is it?
Should we not focus our entire energy on just going out and taking photographs?
Posted by Gordon at 09:01
Labels: Paul Butzi
I also think that to make good photographs I have to focus on making photographs, i.e seeing and capturing. I want to capture what I see. But to really get a good photograph, this photograph has to show what I saw in the end. So I have to have in mind how I want the photograph to come out that I am about to make.
I also agree in that while making a photograph I am not driven by the question of how others will perceive this photograph. A photograph has to be good for me. Certainly I am happy when others think a photograph is good also but if they don't, we simply have different means to determine a good photograph.
To me it is important to put photographs online in my photo gallery or to print them in a photo book. Feedback on that from others is important, but more importantly, to publish photographs I make a statement with them regardless of how they are perceived by others.
I do not think I would be happy if I would not share my photographs. Sometimes I am not happy when my photographs are not seen by many others but then the photographs are not different, they are still good to me. And by sharing them, I show how I see the world, make a statement, bring the process to an end.