PHOTOGRAPHY, WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
From I was a small kid I’ve always been drawing or making things with my own hands. Not necessarily amazing stuff, but I loved creating something I could relate to, something that was mine. As the years went by, I got occupied in school, and later at work. That’s the normal life I guess, but my creativity shifted from making my own stuff, to do what others told me to do, and I kind of lost my own creativity for several decades.
I’ve always felt something was missing, and I guess, deep in the back of my head, I knew what was missing too. I just didn’t have the time and energy to start digging, and get it out into the light. So, I just went on with my normal life as almost everyone else do, trying not to get distracted in my daily doings. That’s the normal thing to do, yes?
Well, we usually do what we’re expected to do, like going to work every day, building a family, and try to get a stable income so we can feed our family. Thinking about ourselves, our needs always comes second, even third in some cases. And we always do it with a smile on our faces, or at least try to. But deep inside we crumble, and are falling apart, the glue, or the fuel to keep our being alive slowly runs empty.
What could I do the stop this from happening, as I knew I had to do something. I had a good life, surrounded by good people, so there was nothing around me that was causing this emptiness inside me. This might sound weird, but I started to look back on my life, maybe I was doing something wrong? I went all the way back to my childhood, to the few memories I manage to dig up. And it was then I realized I’d lost the creative part of me, I hadn’t been doing anything for myself for decades, just done what everyone else told me to do, and for others, not for me.
I had to find a way to get this back, and for me this happened to be photography. I’ve always been in love with the outdoor, woodland, mountains, and wildlife. I didn’t realize how much I love it until I lost it. I got diagnosed with arthritis 2 years ago, and I was told my mobility would suffer a lot. So I soon found out that going up into the mountains was something I would loose finally. Walking in particularly wouldn’t become any easy task for me in the future.
I knew I had to keep on walking as best as I could, just to keep me mobile for as long as possible. So I needed something that could drag my ass out of the chair as often as possible, and I ended up with photography, and woodland. I’m surrounded by woodland, not any kind of amazing stuff, but it has the potential to surprise me more often than not. And this seems to have started the refueling of my inner self, and my creativity seems to be waking up from its hibernation.
I know by making images with my camera, I’m automatically looked upon as a photographer, but I’m more that that. I see myself as an Artist, I create ART with my camera, not just make images. The truth is, I believe all of us, doing any kind of photography are Artist’s! We put so much of ourselves in our crafts, that it’s not fair to just call us photographers. Don’t get me wrong here, nothing wrong being a photographer, I’m a photographer too.
Personal example…. As a photographer: I make a beautiful woodland image, do the usual edit, adjusting light, shadows, colors, crop it, and the post it. The response are; Love it, beautiful, nice image, beautiful done, amazing. Then, I share the same image, but add some atmosphere to it, tweak it, even add another sky, or making a composite. I can’t share that as a photographer without a lot of negative comment; It’s a fake, it’s a composite, you’re not a photographer…
As an Artist that seems much easier. Why should it be like this? I’m the same guy, just want to express myself differently.
Sheltered
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Cheers,
