Be Inspired | Weekly Reading
Posted by Katrina Kennedy on Feb 4, 2012 in 365, Blog, Photography | 19 comments
Photography is time just for me. Time for me to explore what I love through a lens. I eliminate the extras and focus on less. Because it is for me I accept things that may not be perfect. I want my life to be captured. It’s those moments that matter.
For this weekend’s reading I’m linking to only one post. This is a long post a little content some may find offensive. I’d suggest you read to the end. The last two paragraphs are the reason I’m linking!
Rant: I Love Photography| Photoshelter
Then stop back by here and let me know what you thought.
Who do you shoot for?
I its great when people find their style of photography and can become really good with finding or creating those moments. There are people like me, who occasionally wander from what I like to do, in search of that certain style, the style that will set me apart; but I end back to photographing what I like to photograph, and that is just random stuff, stuff that catches my eye or moves me. I would assume it would be fulfilling to do something silly like levitate myself and post it all on facebook, but I would be bored with it. I cant let my photography make me bored. I love it too much.
That was amazing. So interesting. So true.
I have two teenagers who sigh and complain every time I want to take a picture. Every. Single. Time. I keep telling them someday they’ll be glad I did. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe every time they look at a picture I took they’ll say “Uggghhh remember when she spent 2 days taking 600 pictures of her camera?!!” I bet that complaint leads to “Yeah and remember how mad she was when I hit her lens with my arrow?!!” And I bet that complaint leads to … whatever.
Whatever memory it leads to, whatever complaint it leads to, it leads to my mission being accomplished. I captured a moment in our lives. I created treasure memories. The memories might not even be the moment I caught in the picture! The memory might be the 599 pictures that got deleted! I still accomplished my mission.
I love photography.
It’s so easy to look at the amazing pictures in the 365 gallery and think I stink and wonder why I bother (I’ll never be able to take pictures like THAT!) and combine that with my kids lack of desire to even stop and allow be to take a picture without them complaining (which is ALMOST as bad as the amount of complaining when I want them to be IN a picture!) and say it’s not worth it. I could put my camera away and live in peace. But then I read an article like that and realize …. it’s worth it. It’s worth it because I love photography. It makes me happy. And I don’t care who thinks what about my pictures. Looking at them and sharing them makes me happy. And I have a right to be happy. For seventeen years I forgot that. But its true. I have a right to be happy … and photography makes me happy … and that’s what this article said to me.
Wow … that’s like a book report! lol Sorry. Once I started it just kinda all came out.
I loved it! It absolutely shines through the photography makes you happy Kim!
Yes! Exactly! (And my kids also complain about having their picture taken, I don’t care.)
You’ve done it again, Katrina . . . worth every second of reading to get to the last two paragraphs! Certainly helps me with the thought ‘I do this for me’.
My sentiments, exactly! So important to have something we truly do for ourselves!
Fantastic article–very worthy of your one and only pick for the week. Thank you for sharing!
I enjoyed this article also.
I am hoping that 365 will help me find my style.
I decided at the start of this project to select a subject each day and take only 5 images of it, each from a different perspective.
I am hoping to learn something from this. Time will tell.
Thanks for sharing the article.
Elaine, I love your approach! Are you blogging your photos/experience?
Fantastic article. I love photography!
One sister takes photos of her twin girls and posts them to her facebook from time to time. Dark, grainy cell phone photos. And they are perfect. Another sister has a dSLR and takes photos on auto of her daughters horse shows. They are perfect, as otherwise there would be no photos.
I have belonged to the digital photography club in my area for just about a year. I am not going to continue. Everytime I go to the web site someone is going on and on and on about the technical aspects of photos. There is not much love there. I have gotten tired of hearing how you shouldn’t take snap shots. I know it is just one or two folks, but jeez, I think they turn people away, not encourage them.
Photography, it’s a great thing no matter what camera you use!
I love photography!
Great article – I like how she recognizes everyone’s style. Mine is close up pictures. Much to my kids’ dismay – they hate those, but I love those pictures that fill the frame with details.
Thank you for sharing, that was a great article. Sadly, there are haters everywhere aren’t they? I could have replaced some of that with comments that quilters make to each other (you aren’t a real quilter if you X, Y, or Z…)
As a quilter and a knitter, I’m finding the immediacy of photography a refreshing change…
I really enjoyed reading this article. I too LOVE photography! If it wasn’t for me and my camera, there would be so many family events that would never have been documented. Taking photos makes me happy. They aren’t always good but they mean something to me anyway.
When we start getting too stiff and picky about picture taking, all the fun goes away. I do want to learn to improve my photography but I will certainly not put my camera down if my photos don’t get any better than they are now.
Love that last sentence and totally agree!!
thank you for that article ( not sure what content you thought may be offensive) for me the article captured the beauty of photography and of life..it shows us that each person looks thru the lens and sees life in a different way but thru photography shares what they saw. i love photography for all the different types of photos
it also very importantly reminded me that the how to/technical quality of the photo is not as meaningful as having captured the moment as seen thru the photographer. i was recently reminded this when i put together a slide show for my daughters wedding rehearsal dinner. the photos may have gotten tecnically better over the years as i had learned more about photography and had better camera/lens but from the first photo to the last that was not what anyone was looking at and the joy/laughter/happiness that each photo brought was never a reflection on the technical perfection of the photo
Great read and so worthy of being the one and only link posted this week.
Every time I take a photo, I am one step closer to understanding that for me, it is about the emotion a photo brings with it. If not for documentation, I would never take a front facing, family lined up photo again but I understand the need for it.
I am not one of those who came to photography early in life, in fact my life experiences taught me that photos, lie. They don’ts show what is really going on in family’s life and I was pretty much photo -unfriendly. Maybe that is why the emotion means so much now.
As for the chicken, I maybe be in love….tks Miss K
OOHHH, I just loved this! I LOVE photography…have for so long…even before I knew what that meant…I just love photographs. I still love going through shoeboxes of photos at my moms, all these “bad” photos that I get so much joy out of looking at. Even now, I just love taking photos, whether it is with my DSLR, my small point and shoot, or my phone….I am always glad to go back and look through them…..