OT - How has photography influenced your life?

Hello All,

We all are here because of out passion for photography and want to learn and share the craft. But like everything else in life, photography too has an influence on the other aspects of our lives (besided costing us lots of money and time!!). Hope to hear what all of you have experienced.

Here is how it has influenced me:

1. More aware of and sensitive to aesthetics and light around me
2. More appreciative of art in general

3. More appreciative of music (I notice even the simple tunes, and see what I missed before)
4. In general involvement with things around including language, listening, etc.

Thanx for any thoughts.

cheers
D_bug.

Well D_bug;

It's like this I see the small things now, the detail, sometimes even the photo...

I tend to look for the photo for the most part of the time.

Personally I have never spent so much time studying my surroundings and the people around me.

Photography has had quite a profound effect on me; I'm far more appreciaitve of pretty much everything I witness!

Was I ignorant before?
--
Davew

That's a very good question. And as easy to answer as you might first think!

There's no doubt that photography makes me pay more attention to my surroundings. As kids, we have little idea as to the seasons or the passage of time. It was summer when we went to play ourtside and it was winter when it was christmas. Simple as that. Photography made me sit up and take notice of the environment a lot more - the times of year when a particular flower appeared, or a particular tree blossomed etc. In trying to photograph these changes, I became more aware of the ephemeral natue of things - the fact that this beauty is really very short-lived.

So I've learnt to appreciate the environment a lot more, to enjoy the seasons.

But one day - one day I will get my definitive daffodil picture!!

;-))

--
AH

Optimum tempus garantitum omnibus

Looking back on the past several years when I began to get semi-serious about photography, the most important influence has been the most unexpected.....the many people I've gotten to know and become friends with has been just wonderful!

Of course, I've acquired better cameras & equipment and hopefully, gotten a little better at picture-taking, but the times spent with my good friends both in person and through the forum has enriched my life. I won't name them, except for one I'll mention, for fear of leaving some out, but I've personally met and visited with many OTF members across the country and regularly correspond with many more from all around the world. The common interest in photography is just the catalyst for something greater, the cameraderie of good friends.

The one I'll mention is my departed friend, Jim Logan. We became acquainted through another photo site and upon learning we lived just 25 miles apart, made arrangements to meet and go to Cades Cove. Jim was an accomplished wildlife photographer and knew The Cove like the back of his hand, and we began going there together on a weekly basis for over three years. Our families became friends and we had great times together. His untimely death from cancer was a real loss but that friendship would have never happened without my interest in photography.

Yes, my eyes have expanded to see more of the world around me and I've learned so much about things I'd never heard of before, but it all comes back to the people I've met along the way that makes it such a rewarding part of my life.

That's just my own personal take on things.

Great thread topic!

Best regards,

****

--
http://www.pbase.com/richardr
D70&C-2100UZ&C-5050Z&C-7000Z&C-3000Z

...this interest in photography has helped me to 'see' so much more than ever before. The wonders in the skies and in the details of a spider, ...flowers and panoramas....the world is a bigger place due to photography!

and as RichardR says.....the people that I have met here on the forum...folks from around the world....have been such an added bonus! It has been wonderful to share the interest in photography with friends from many lands...sharing our homes, our surroundings, our lives sometimes, too. I would never have dreamed I would have made the friends that I've made right here on the Oly forum. I am so thankful to you all for coming into my life!

Lucy
U ZI owner!
Olympus C30-20Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
FCAS Member #98, Oly Division
'Photography is the art of seeing what others do not.'

Just as people tend to be introverted or extraverted, they tend to be verbal or visual. For better or worse, I'm verbal, and always will be. My sensitivity to visual beauty is a pale ghost of a sickly thing compared to my awareness of that mysterious and thunderous pipe organ that we call the English language.

I used to live almost exclusively in the world of idea, language, history and ideas. It was who I was as much as what I did. Then I fell into photography.

When I began experimenting with photography, I had just enough appreciation of art to see how mediocre my photography was. And always will be. But I love challenging myself to do better because it feels like learning to flex a muscle whose nerve has suffered terrible damage and is no longer connected to my brain. If I try hard enough, the dead limb of photographic ability will twitch and kick, even if it cannot dance.

Pushing myself to do better at photography doesn't have a chance of making me a good photographer, ultimately, but it has been richly influential in helping me perceiving beauty in daily life. Thanks to photography, I now am much better at seeing and enjoying pattern, color, contrast, shadow, composition and other elements of visual beauty in daily life.

That's a wonderful gift!
--
Steve

... that I was much better looking. Photography changed all that. "That can't be ME.." I think when I see a photograph of myself.

I notice that my startlingly white legs are not nearly as pretty when causing blown highlights. Same for the nice bald spot on the back of my head.

Digital photography has also greatly enhanced my waistline, since I sit at a computer to process my photos rather than running around in a darkroom. I've also noticed that because of this side effect, I've become more attuned to the barrelling effect of wide-angle lenses.

On the other hand, I do get some nice shots of OTHER people and things that keep me going. And I can always use my bald spot as a reflector when things get dim. Yeah... that's it. Photography has made me innovative. )

-- Typeaux

The only test of an image is the satisfaction it gives you. There simply isn't any other test.

I have always been very visual, and photography has been part of this for about 40 years. However, the last four using digital instead of film has been mind-expanding (and waist-expanding as I sit at my computer more!). My hubby thinks I get carried away, and I guess I do, but everywhere I look I see photo possibilities. He used to say that Kodak loved me. It took a while when we were younger to get him to stop when I wanted to take pictures. Now I do most of the driving and have been known to swerve dangerously and slam on brakes to stop for a photo.
--
Lois Ann
C765UZ, SP500, MCON 40, TCON 17
Photography: 'Freezing photons for the future.' or 'Capturing a story in light.'

By the time I was 16, I'd lived in 8 different palces, gone to 6 different schools and been across the ocean 4 times on ocean liners so I became sort of quiet and very observant so photography was an instant fit for me when I got interested in it.

One big thing that photography did for me: when I realized that you'd only get average pictures if you stood with the rest of the crowd (figureatively and literally)...that you had to pluck up your courage and get out there and expose yourself as well as your film.

----
UZI + B-300 & 'Shoot to Kill'

...i began seriously working with photography after having already been a practicing visual artist for a number of years---drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture.

i found photography quite annoying---particualarly the inability to compose just as i wished---but also quite challenging, especially technically. and it is in this technical side that photography has been most influential--it's a side of myself i largely ignored before i got involved in photography. but in order to get the results i wanted and to deal with the frustrating recurrent failure of my images as adequate art objects, i was forced to deal more and more with photography's hard and unyeilding technicalities.

after more than a quarter of a century off and on, i guess i'm further along {:-?

in having the wonderful side effects!!

Thanx all who shared, it is this sharing that is enriching on these forums.

Cheers
D_Bug.

I have long thought that the most important thing about photography for me was not the images I make and share with others, or their reaction to those images. Nor is it the thrill I get when I see a good composition in the viewfinder. Instead, it's all the thousands of things I see, that I don't photograph, which I would not have seen if I weren't looking for photographs.

In short, photography vastly increases my awareness of the world around me, and has for most of my life. I owe photography a great debt, which I try to repay through my photographs.

--John C.

Typeaux said:

... that I was much better looking. Photography changed all that.
"That can't be ME.." I think when I see a photograph of myself.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think that as well whenever I see a picture of you. My words....what happened ??

Typeaux said:

I notice that my startlingly white legs are not nearly as pretty
when causing blown highlights. Same for the nice bald spot on the
back of my head.

Click to expand...

Nothing a CP filter won't fix.

Typeaux said:

Digital photography has also greatly enhanced my waistline, since I
sit at a computer to process my photos rather than running around
in a darkroom. I've also noticed that because of this side effect,
I've become more attuned to the barrelling effect of wide-angle
lenses.

Click to expand...

LOL! I think you might need one of those mirrors you get in hall of mirrors. And some smoke. It'll take years off you!

Typeaux said:

On the other hand, I do get some nice shots of OTHER people and
things that keep me going. And I can always use my bald spot as a
reflector when things get dim. Yeah... that's it. Photography has
made me innovative. )

Click to expand...

Hear! hear!

Keep up the good work Tom!

;-))

--
AH

Optimum tempus garantitum omnibus

Well... I'm with all of you, photography has been a great sucess in my way to see the live and the world.

Additionally I owe to the photography the fact than I reduced the speed when driving, far behind are the days when I was driving at 180-200 Km/h looking just the black road, now I see around, the scenery, the sky!!, my god!! how bad I felt when I discovered all the years I wasted without enjoying the sky... All the great places I've walked, mountains I've climbed, and I never paid attention to the tiny and beautiful wildflowers and bugs... now I'm more conscient of mine environment, of the places I visit, etc, etc, etc...

Yeah... Thanks photography, I love you.

--
http://www.pbase.com/fvillegas

Hi,

I've been mulling this question over ever since I saw it posted the other day, trying to come up with my answer. I've read what everyone else has written and can identify with lots of what's already been said, so no need to repeat.

I realize that I need to make a distinction between film photography and digital, which has really changed the way I deal with the camera.

I've always loved looking at old pictures (even when I don't know the people in them). At my grandma's house there was always a big box filled with pictures of my mom and her brother & friends which I loved looking at; over the years taking pictures has been more of a documentary thing -- to record moments, events, places visited, etc.

When I lived in Costa Rica and did folklore research, I would take pictures of processes -- the guy in town who made brooms, the women who made tortillas or tamales, the saddlemaker, religious processions, fiestas, etc.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I was involved in some wonderful photo projects via the public library which invited people in various ethnic neighborhoods to bring in their shoeboxes of photos to be copied and made part of the historical photo archive in the library. (Also a book was produced from it called Shades of LA). Later I worked on a wonderful archiving project at, of all things, a local rock products/ concrete company. They had file cabinets filled with beautiful old photos, some from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s which I helped organize and put into a database. My own picture taking activities were more places we'd visited, (with some of flowers or sunsets etc., and I've dozens of albums stashed from over the years.

But I never really felt the freedom which I feel now because of the idea that I was "wasting film" on "nonsense" -- like I never would have thought of taking 7 pictures of a fly on a chair (which I did yesterday) if I had to pay for film and developing. And why would I want to have pictures of a fly in the first place?

Now, as others have said, I, too, look around at colors and patterns and the little details of things around me, the way the light strikes or reflects, and I guess it's sort of loosened up my imagination and has made me not so "cheap" i.e., I don't have to worry about wasting film. Now though, there's a new twist -- I don't have the documented moments that might one day be "old photos" -- they're all in this dumb electronic box that could vaporize in a flash, taking all the images with it. Yes, I have them on disks, but only did a back up last time in April. So unless I select some of the images and take them to the photo shop and get them printed out, I'll not have anything to look at. And THAT costs money, too. My own printing hasn't been all that successful -- uses a ton of ink, sometimes the paper feeds in crooked, or myriad other mistakes.

Not sure if all this really answers the question about how photography influences my life, but I do know it's always been part of it, ever since my Dad bought me my first Brownie Hawkeye!!

Like Steve, I've always considered myself much more a verbal person and have enjoyed writing. I find it ironic now, that two years ago, when I published my book about living in Costa Rica, that I actually named it: "Guanacaste Snapshots" -- and put four "old" pictures on the cover! And that was before I ever got involved in digital photography or "met" this wonderful group of people in this forum.

Wow, too long of an answer, but thanks for bearing with me.
Best,
Susan
--



http://www.pbase.com/susan_1016

I agree with you on that, John. I have a hugh collection of "Pictures That I Never Took" but I guess the important thing is that I saw those potential pictures even though I didn't have my camera with me (apply own boot to own ass!!).

I found that ,over the years, I became more of a active seeker than an observer...I liken it to hunting or fishing but with a more elusive quarry.
--
UZI + B-300 & 'Shoot to Kill'

That was the camera that got me started in the 7th grade. I've been hooked ever since. Do you still have yours? I do, and wouldn't part with that little plastic camera.

--John C.

I only wish I still had it -- I think I was about 10 or 11 when I got mine. I wonder what ever became of it?
--



http://www.pbase.com/susan_1016