Why do you photograph?

[Wayne Lambert]

Ultimately, why do you photograph, because you like the subject or because you like the photograph?

[Kirk Gittings]

I care about the subject, but I love a great image/print. It is the most deeply satisfying endeavor I have ever participated in.

[Vaughn]

Because I love the light, I greatly enjoy wandering in the landscape, and I use this exercise as a way to better learn how to see and to intensify the way I see. My prints are a way of sharing what I have learned, and to support the exercise.

Vaughn

[Nathan67]

Because it's my job, and it pays the bills... :)
But thats all digital these days, so film and especially large format, is a kind of therapy for me...
Photography is a passion, an addiction, a compulsion... always has been and I hope, always will be...

[eric black]

For me it is an attraction to the scene and more specifically, the way the colors interact in the scene, I then try to put my own stamp on it by trying to capture the aspects that I deem interesting on film. In the end sometimes I succeed and its a keeper, sometimes I fail and it goes in the round file at the end of my desk. Sometimes I get surprised and get a result that I neither saw nor anticipated- these have been some of my best sellers.

[shadow images]

Pure addiction, I need a 12 step program.

[Walter Calahan]

'Cause I'm incompetent doing anything else.

And for the money. Grin.

[Daniel_Buck]

for me, it's relaxing and fun! And the photos I get are enjoyable to look at later as well!

[MenacingTourist]

I started photography about 5 years ago as a way to sharpen and challenge my creative skills. My day job is Art Direction/Design so photography was the perfect outlet.

That's pretty much the only end result I'm looking for. Enjoying the journey.

Alan.

[ljb0904]

I've already spent money on cars, rock climbing, and women. Now I'm spending it on photography :-D

[willwilson]

It is a combination of the process and the need to create. It can be both hysterically creative, chasing disappearing light, or contemplative and relaxing. It is almost always exciting and new.

[Drew Bedo]

So…Why DO I photograph? At times I can’t be bothered to get out the bags. At other times I feel compelled to shoot. I can’t resist afternoon sunlight slanting through a wide window, and search the house for something to place in that light. Having a great subject is a strong factor, but the light is my catalyst for creating an image.

[Gordon Moat]

I realized prior to graduating with an a degree in art that I was not going to make a living as a painter. So I took on other more commercial creative challenges; first illustration, then design, and those led me to photography.

I really enjoy the creative challenges, controlling an image, and capturing a brief moment. Subject matter and scene often intrigue me, though they are mainly the launching points for ideas.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Jan Pedersen]

Because it is a creative and challenging process and i like to look at B&W photos.
It has been my longest living hobby now for more that 35 years on and off.

[Charles Carstensen]

Photographing, for me, is an obsession, a challenge, a capture of my visualization at the moment of being in the scene. The magic happens when the print is made. It is personally satisfying to actually hold a physical object that I once saw in my mind. That sometimes happens years after the image capture. I photograph something, somehow, most every day of the year. Photographing means that I am alive and well.

[domenico Foschi]

It's a curse, a necessity,I loathe it and I love it, it's a search for Beauty and a vehicle to visit my ghosts, it's unnerving and it's relaxing, it's a release.
Some days I run away from it, others it exudes from my pores.
It's continuous pull to which at times I resist and others i release resistance and let myself be transported by its current.
WHy I take pictures?
It's this unstoppable need to search for Beauty and the yearning to feel it when I see it through the cracks.

[John Kasaian]

To share beautiful images which I am unable to describe with words.

[Brian_A]

I photgraph because I like to produce things I enjoy looking at and that other people enjoy looking at. It relaxes me, for the most part. It gets me out of this house and out into the open. It also gives me an excuse to not do other things that need doing :)

-Brian

[raucousimages]

Because I can't draw. As a kid I loved art but I can't draw. When I was about 12 I discovered photography and built my first darkroom the next year. I was finaly able to produce on paper the images I had in my head.

[Steve M Hostetter]

I stopped drinking and taking life for granted and started taking photos... It's something I have to do to fill a nitch and remain whole..

[C. D. Keth]

I have no idea why I feel compelled to photograph. It's an everyday thing for me. Video and motion pictures are my profession and still images are a hobby and passion.

[butterflydream]

Because the words can't describe life.

[Alex Hawley]

I care about the subject, but I love a great image/print. It is the most deeply satisfying endeavor I have ever participated in.

Those are pretty much my feelings too. I will add that I also love the challenge, and results, of translating a scene form its natural state of color to an abstract scene in B&W.

[Alan Davenport]

Because I'm an even worse painter...

[seawolf66]

Its the effort that you put into it and what you Have in the end: But its a moment in time that matters to me:

[Stephen Willard]

Simply put, photographing the land is an intoxicating labor of love for me.

[jnantz]

i get access to things, and people
that i would normally never get to see or meet.
i learn more about everything around me, ( and me)
each time i press the shutter.

[Diane Maher]

It gets me moving my body and my mind. I get out of the house, away from the computer and also do something with my mind.

[nelsonfotodotcom]

I photograph because I must. I love faces and stories behind them, driven to capture both through the lens. Besides, it's the one thing I can do better than all others. It feels right, feels like the thing I am meant to do.

[Wally]

Because I must. All my other endeavors are logical, calculated, planned to take me down a known path to some reasonable goal. Photography is in my life for creative expression.

[Daniel_Buck]

Oh, and as another (and possibly more important reason) when I'm at work, I have to create images that other people want, I just do the work. With photography, I get to do what I want! I think that's part of the enjoyment for me.

[nathanm]

For the most part I care more about the photograph and not so much the subject. There's nothing particularly special about the places I shoot, to the naked eye they are pretty damn boring, but when photographed they become more aesthetically pleasing. But this only gets you in the door, and eventually I have to ask myself what subjects do I REALLY want to see in the photo? I'm still trying to figure that out.

Wait no, I remember now. It's naked chicks. That was it.

Damn…where are they?

Ahh screw it, let's find some gnarly trees.

[Mark Sloane]

I am not wildly optimistic about humanity. All too often I dwell on and/or am bombarded with all the things we screw up.

The one thing that gives me hope is human creativity. When you see it, touch it, hear it and/or participate in it, I sometimes feel like we have no limits.

[Turner Reich]

It's a kind of compulsion, a way of life, I tune out my friends and women, anything that gets in the way. The time is short and the Art is long to learn.

[John Alexander Dow]

Because I am no good at painting and yet I need to create pictures.

[Dave_B]

Because I get to play with way cool gear.........

[Maris Rusis]

As a ransom against mortality.

When all the photographs are gathered up and there are no more to be done it is but slim baggage for a journey into eternity. Most folks are fated to travel with nothing.

[Nathan Potter]

It is simply a celebration of life. The constant looking is to alleviate a deep fear that I will miss something that I could have perceived.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.