Seems like the more I listen, the more I hear people talking about the gear, the business of photography, the widgets. Let us not forget the simple love of photography.
I understand why there’s so much rhetoric in our industry about the business of photography and the gear and the gadgets. There is the common stereotype that most creative people aren’t good business people. There is fear. Gear is easier to talk about than vision. Exposures are exact, the camera dials have numbers. There is a ‘right’ answer to many of these questions.
But where is your love of pictures? Where are your actions that back this up?
Can you pick up a book of photographs and get lost in it?
Can you walk around with your iPhone or Android or your point and shoot or whatever and take 100 pictures knowing that they’ll never be for a client or a portfolio?
Do you love hunting for pictures?
Will you stay up late or get up early for pictures?
Do you sometimes ‘see’ life as a photograph?
It’s different for all of us, but when you can take a break from all the chatter, remind yourself–as often as you can–why you love photography.
Thanks for trying to bring focus back to art of photography. I find blogs that talk about the creative process of making an image more interesting than those just dump latest equipment specs acting as shills for their sponsors.
You nailed it!
Thanks for bringing us back to the roots of why we started all this craziness.
i love talking about gear (be it photography or any other hobby of mine), but i never forget why i do this: because i love it! even if i spend hours out “in the field” snapping away and come home with nothing good, i remember how much fun it was to be out there. and that’s what motivates me to get up and do it again next time.
Word.
for me photography its a way to express what i feel and what i see, i love do to it, and i can never be without camera in the hand
INDEED!!!