Why Do We Photograph?

[William Whitaker]

I like that, Tangmeister! That would have saved a heap of money... Even if I bought "archival" staples! (HA!)
As it was, I got in trouble for push-pinning my artist statement to the wall. It got taken down and things said. Don't want holes in the walls!!... Yeah? And so like just where was I supposed to display it??

[William Whitaker]

...here is the thing..does the guy with the huge model railroad layout in his basement ever ask himself why he does that?

Maybe so he can take a fantasy ride through the land of giants...
https://youtu.be/cAu59h0RkWw

[Sazerac]

It is a type of sickness, I guess. There isn’t a good reason to wake up early or stay up late to work on making the image that you saw in your head a reality. It’s an expensive habit for sure, but it’s still cheaper then drugs and doesn’t mess up me life as much.

[mdarnton]

I do it because I enjoy it. And I enjoy looking at my own pictures, and thinking about what they mean to me. I have never been driven to spread what I do around to other people. When I worked at a newspaper, I was so immune to self-promotion that the editor himself packaged my prints and entered them in my name in competitions, to make the paper more visible--he couldn't get me interested in that.

[arca andy]

Why do we photograph? Because yacht design college wouldn't take me and photography college would...oh how my life could have been so different!

[Will Frostmill]

I wish you well, that must have been a fun and frustrating experience. It is good to receive personal recognition. It is a weird feeling for there to be no financial recognition, but people are weird and irrational about spending money.

I do photography because it is fun. To an extent it is a form of personal expression, even if it is by accident. But I mostly do it because it is fun, or it satisfies my need to capture a moment, or record some light.

Selling and marketing work...I've never spent the time to solve that problem. Selling pictures is probably the same kind of problem as designing a new kind of developer. It's a technical problem from a different field, and I'd have to study some experts from that field to figure it out. (Photographers who do sell often make lousy role models for how to sell.)

[Tin Can]

Why? Because I can. I like memory saved.

However art I really see, cannot be captured.

Yet

[John Layton]

An observation in consideration of Will’s original post…

For the past three years…I’ve had a booth at a very well regarded juried arts/crafts fair in New Hampshire, which typically sees around twenty five thousand visitors during its nine day run in early August. While my sales more than doubled between my first and second years, they fell back to just above my first-year levels this past August. Thing is…everything else about this experience…the quality of my work/presentation, plus the enthusiasm for my work, was arguably better than in the past.

So what happened? Not sure…but I had a strong sense that many folks simply found, in being surrounded by my work, that my booth became a calming, meditative refuge in the midst of very difficult and challenging times, while the uncertainties related to these times have made it much more difficult to justify the purchase of anything “discretionary.” In fact, quite a few who visited my booth shared as much…and that while they’d love to take a print home with them, this simply “wasn’t the right time.” I could only respond with understanding. Interesting times…indeed!

[John Layton]

and yes...I also have had a number of showings during which nothing sells. All the work...the expenses...the logistics. This does hurt...no matter how I might try to philosophize.

[cowanw]

The three vanities would be why we photograph.