I don’t take photography very seriously, but it is something i seriously enjoy. Many of my good friends and i connect over taking, editing, and looking at each others’ photographs. Pictured above, an old friend sits in a driftwood teepee. That day, we went for a drive to reconnect and stopped at the lagoon near my house to shoot.
Some people are bothered by the fact that I feel the need to take pictures instead of simply enjoying the moment. I’ve heard people ridiculing photographers, amateurs like myself included, for “using nature’s beauty” (yes, i quote that from the angst-filled post that inspired this rant) as only a product of their art. Which is total, utter nonsense.
When you take a photograph, you capture a moment. Maybe it made you feel happy, maybe it made you feel sad, but that photo has meaning behind the subject pictured. It does not mean that you did not enjoy the moment! It means you enjoyed it enough to want to keep it. Just as a painter paints emotions in brush strokes, a photographer paints with the god-given scenery he or she has already been given. For some people, photos mean nothing. I mean, who really cares about, say, a tree and a bench side by side in the fog? But if the photo you’ve taken makes you feel something, rememeber something, or reminds you of something, it does not matter what others think. The quality and focus of a photo do not dictate it’s value. Something does not have to be beautiful to be art.
So go on and take bad photographs and laugh and smile and enjoy capturing the world without worrying what other people have to say about it. If it brings you joy, do it. And that goes for everything.
