D750, Laowa 15mm f4 Macro
This post is going to be a little different. It's not about gear or technique, or even my experiences on my most recent photo excursion.
It's about why I make photographs in the first place.
A friend asked me something recently that got me thinking about this.
Now I'm a very social photographer. I like talking to other photographers about photography and related subjects and I enjoy taking photographs of my friends and others when I'm around them. Photography has long been a way for me to connect with people, something I sometimes struggle with due to my generally introverted nature.
However I am quite solitary when making photographs.
Now that sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't. The process of photography can be very social for me. However the art of making photographs for me is all about solitude.
When I'm doing social photography I'm taking photographs for sure, but they are candids and grab shots, intended solely for sharing amongst the group in question and part of the social interaction of the group I'm with. It's also something that's both allowed me to connect with people I'd otherwise have difficulties relating to (like classmates 10-15 years younger than me when I was in University) and staying a little aloof when I was uncomfortable. I've found many valuable friendships this way, including some of my most enduring and valued friendships.
When I'm making photographs however (and note 'making' vs 'taking' here), it's always an exploration of my solitude and disconnection from the environment around me. I've never felt at home in large cities and my move from taking snapshots to making photographic art was largely built on an attempt to connect to Toronto, the city I've spent pretty much my entire adult life in. It's something I failed at doing, but I learned a lot and built a body of work which explores that isolation I feel with regards to Toronto. That is in a large part why I started calling this part of my work Cityscapes rather than Street Photography (I'm not the first to use the term by far, but I did come up with it on my own). It's not about the people, it's the city itself I'm shooting and the city I find myself isolated in.
Likewise Landscape photography for me is also about isolation, but it's the inverse experience. I find a connection to the landscape when I'm isolated from others and from signs of human influence. This is especially true when shooting the BC Interior and the Canadian Shield, two landscapes closely tied to my childhood and teen years. And I believe this is also why I've rediscovered my love for photography as an art form and a process as I've moved to shooting primarily Landscape work, because with Landscape work I can relish my connections to nature and the wilderness rather than my photography being a failed search for a connection to a concrete jungle that I just can't relate to truly.
This fundamentally also explains why there's such a lack of images on my Flickr from the many photo walks and other events around people. My Flickr has very much become the home for my serious work, and that has steadily progressed from dabbling in street photography and snapshots to a more serious body of Cityscape and Landscape work. It also makes me wonder if I should cull some of the less related work I have on my Flickr that didn't get culled largely because of its popularity.
This post is going to be a little different. It's not about gear or technique, or even my experiences on my most recent photo excursion.
It's about why I make photographs in the first place.
A friend asked me something recently that got me thinking about this.
Now I'm a very social photographer. I like talking to other photographers about photography and related subjects and I enjoy taking photographs of my friends and others when I'm around them. Photography has long been a way for me to connect with people, something I sometimes struggle with due to my generally introverted nature.
However I am quite solitary when making photographs.
Now that sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't. The process of photography can be very social for me. However the art of making photographs for me is all about solitude.
When I'm doing social photography I'm taking photographs for sure, but they are candids and grab shots, intended solely for sharing amongst the group in question and part of the social interaction of the group I'm with. It's also something that's both allowed me to connect with people I'd otherwise have difficulties relating to (like classmates 10-15 years younger than me when I was in University) and staying a little aloof when I was uncomfortable. I've found many valuable friendships this way, including some of my most enduring and valued friendships.
When I'm making photographs however (and note 'making' vs 'taking' here), it's always an exploration of my solitude and disconnection from the environment around me. I've never felt at home in large cities and my move from taking snapshots to making photographic art was largely built on an attempt to connect to Toronto, the city I've spent pretty much my entire adult life in. It's something I failed at doing, but I learned a lot and built a body of work which explores that isolation I feel with regards to Toronto. That is in a large part why I started calling this part of my work Cityscapes rather than Street Photography (I'm not the first to use the term by far, but I did come up with it on my own). It's not about the people, it's the city itself I'm shooting and the city I find myself isolated in.
Likewise Landscape photography for me is also about isolation, but it's the inverse experience. I find a connection to the landscape when I'm isolated from others and from signs of human influence. This is especially true when shooting the BC Interior and the Canadian Shield, two landscapes closely tied to my childhood and teen years. And I believe this is also why I've rediscovered my love for photography as an art form and a process as I've moved to shooting primarily Landscape work, because with Landscape work I can relish my connections to nature and the wilderness rather than my photography being a failed search for a connection to a concrete jungle that I just can't relate to truly.
This fundamentally also explains why there's such a lack of images on my Flickr from the many photo walks and other events around people. My Flickr has very much become the home for my serious work, and that has steadily progressed from dabbling in street photography and snapshots to a more serious body of Cityscape and Landscape work. It also makes me wonder if I should cull some of the less related work I have on my Flickr that didn't get culled largely because of its popularity.
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