[smf]

PM sent, recommending the recent book and online postings of Michigan macrophotographer Mike Moats. (He is not a Pentax photographer.) Some of his work can be seen at tinylandscapes.com
Stu in Michigan

[joele]

Photography challenges me to see the world more creatively than I otherwise would.

I really agree with that, not just the creative thing, but I do find I look at the world differently than I used to (pay more attention to visual details, maybe)..

To the OP, it is a hobby, for fun...

[NaClH2O]

There are a myriad of reasons why I photograph. I think foremost is that I NEED a creative outlet. Without creativity I'd probably go postal. Why photography instead of music, cooking, calligraphy, poetry, short story writing? (all of which I practice or have practiced) I don't know for sure. Photography is more singular, I don't need the help of others to practice it (like music) Photography is more universal, (more people I think appreciate a good photo than do nice calligraphy or poetry) Photography gets me outside (unlike poetry or short story writing)
I don't do photography for my living, if someone wants to buy a shot (no one has offered so far) well and good, but the act of photography is enough on its own. I made the mistake of taking my love of cooking and turning it into a profession. I even went so far as to get a degree in it. After 8 years as a chef, I was totally burned out on the experience, I will NEVER cook professionally again. It even damaged my love of cooking, it was about 4 or 5 years before I seriously took up the craft again.
Someone else mentioned the gratification of sharing, that too, is part of why I enjoy photography. I sincerely enjoy the joy I get by having others like my work.

I don't think macro photography is any harder than any other kind of photography, it's just that the rules are somewhat different. Because DOF is so thin, focus is critical. Often, in macro work, what is left OOF is as important as what is in focus. If you are good with macro, you can get several completely different shots with the same setup depending on what is in, and out, of focus. Like Ron Boggs said I'd say that a good tripod with flexible set up options is a macro photographers most important tool.

NaCl(creative, shareable, and gets me outside...what's not to like in that?)H2O

[247nino]

I am a photographer because I have bills to pay, SOMETIMES.

But its when I am alone or just with my son that I take PHOTOS for me;
no matter what money photography has made me, those are the ones that hold the highest sentiment.

[Bramela]

For me, taking photographs is a source of relaxation and enjoyment. Nothing better than to get out there early morning and walk along the beach and photograph a sunrise, to walk out in the quiet of the bush, with only the sound of the birds and maybe the breeze in the trees.
whoa, I think I am getting a bit poetic there.
Do it for what you want out of it, enjoy and appreciate the art.

Getting into it purely to make money is a sure way of killing the interest. Enjoy and explore the realms of photography first, then gradually ease into selling down the track.

[RickL]

I take photo's as a way to record what beauty I've seen, and to share it with others. For instance, last labor day weekend I was camping alone on a sandbar on the Mississippi River... on the Illinois side. There was this most beautiful sunset and I was fortunate enough to have my old P&S Sony DSC-H1 along with me, and it did a wonderful job of capturing the moment. Friends arrived during the following day and missed it. I later printed a few pictures of it, and even use one of them as my Windows Desktop background image. When I'm here at work, and it's a frustrating day, I can see that picture and instantly relax.

I've since discarded that DSC-H1, and am learning the ins and outs of my new K200D now. This opens up a whole new world.

I've also used photography to capture sights of a 20 year Air Force career and numerous hunting trips. I've never, ever sold a picture, but I have given countless copies to friends over the year.

Simply put, I do it for my own personal enjoyment.

[GerryL]

..and one of the best reasons why to take a photograph..is because you have a camera!
We don't just buy it to display it, don't we?
We want to see the world looking through the lens in a way that the lens can only distort or isolate imagery and share that imagery to others to give them a different view of how you would have seen things!

[Eigengrau]

Since this thread has been revived anyways, I guess I'll jump in...

In a literal sense, I take photos for fun and money - I do several weddings a year and have sold pieces in a few local art shows, and every so often I take pictures of bizarre things and hope no one I know walks by...

In a more intrinsic, motivational sense I think I'm really addicted to the hunt for the "decisive moment" that Cartier-Bresson talked about. I think there is a kind of essence that you can feel in a certain place at a certain time, a combination of the light and the emotions and the general atmosphere of an experience that can only be conveyed through photography.

I kind of like the old superstition that the camera would steal souls - there's a good argument to be made that we are different people from day to day, moment to moment, and even inanimate landscapes are never quite the same from one shooting to the next. So, it kind of is like the camera captures the soul of an image that would otherwise be lost forever.

All that said, I don't think I've ever succeeded at capturing an instant in a way that really does it justice. You know those pictures when you see them - the ones that seem to teleport you right to where they were taken, and somehow they manage to tell an entire story. I keep trying though.

Sorry, waxed a little bit philisophical there... but this idea really got me thinking. Good topic.

[Grimlock]

Memories. Getting a slice of a moment that might never repeat itself. Trying to keep a bit of thought or dream that might otherwise slip into the oblivion of the forgotten.

[legacyb4]

Why? Because it feels good, I suppose. There's something rewarding about capturing the image you see in your mind's eye.

[CRPhoto]

Istarted shooting because I wanted to collect pictures of airplanes. My first camera was a Pentax ME Super and used it for my first photography class. I really enjoyed it and keep shooting. I still take pictures for fun but I also started selling some and it's a great way of expanding what I enjoyed and doing something different.

[xjjohnno]

Fun, getting myself out and exercising, an excuse to develop stalking techniques when getting bird pic a way of appreciating the world I live in by recording it to photo.
As for the money side of things, not really interested in selling photos, not that I'm likely to reach a standard where folk would want to buy them anyway, mind you as a way of funding that next lens or that next generation camera I might compromise my principles and sell one or 3 pics.

[stevebrot]

I take photos to bore and bother my friends and family members

Seriously though. The question has crossed my mind several times in the last year. My output in the digital era has gotten huge. In the last 4 years, I have eclipsed all that I took in the 36 years that came before. What can I possibly hope to accomplish with these thousands of images. Even if they were all good, would anyone other than myself ever have the patience to look at all of them?

So...why do I do it. Is it because cameras are such neat toys...yes, that is a side benefit. Is it to look cool? Nah, I know better. Is it so I have something asocial to do at parties and family gatherings? Maybe Is it so I can provide a stimulus to the economy...nope...my LBA is of the bottom feeder variety.

And the answer is...I do it because the camera gives me a chance to share in a small part the world as it appears to my eyes and the world as it impacts me. More and more I have been exploring the notion of interpreting complex emotions and emotional concepts with carefully modeled photos of symbolic objects.

A good example would be something I worked on just before Valentines. The photo group that meets at my local church had a Valentine's assignment. Initially I was going to do something cute with candy hearts. I made a special trip to buy the nasty little treats, but was highly disappointed when I spilled the contents onto the counter and found that they were mostly broken and misshapen with the messages incomplete and poorly printed. I thought to myself "Damaged Goods" and started towards the trash can.

It was at that point that I stopped and thought for a moment. I have been a divorced single man for a little over 20 years. There is a tongue-in-cheek saying among long-time single people where we sometimes refer to ourselves or others as "Damaged Goods" in the emotional sense. The tears actually started to come a little as I turned around and decided to work with those pitiful candy hearts. I tried a number of approaches; high key and monochrome as well as gaudy and saturated. I finally connected when I tried desaturated colors on an almost black blood red field. The hearts were in a haphazard pile with the pieces oriented to show their worst defects.

The next evening when the slides were shown I knew that I did my job well. Yes, that shot was eventually voted best of the 40 or so submissions for the Valentine's catagory, but pay-dirt came for me when the slide came up and I heard someone in the room draw in their breath in a sharp wince. The photo touched a chord and I knew that I had shared what I needed to share. There were lots of happy marriage and relationship pictures that night, but mine was the only one that explored that other aspect of personal relationships.

So yeah...I guess that is why I do it...

Steve

[Ash]

Steve, your story strikes a chord right there...
Very revealing and personal, but reminds us of what matters most to us.
Thanks for sharing that reflection.

[RioRico]

Touching insight, Steve. Really. (Now my reasons will seem trivial.)

Why photography? Because that's what my semi-pro dad did - I just about grew up in his darkroom in our suburban L.A. garage. Working on subjects and exposure and composition were just part of coming-of-age, for me.

Why? Because we're an semi-artistic family, my sisters have worked as graphic designers, but all I can draw are flies. At least I can use colored pencils on matte-printed B&W photos, kinda like touching-up Thomas Kinkade 'art'.

Why? Orders. In the US Army, a security snafu disallowed my working my MOS (RTTY, radiotelegraphy), and my colonel saw me carrying decent cameras, so I was appointed "Battalion Photographer" - bought my own film and chemicals, kept all the negs. Thus I shot because I liked to, and because I was ordered to.

Why? For memory. For many darkroomless years, I did the usual shapshooting of friends and family, home and vacation locales, reams of cheap prints and slides to fill albums and bore visitors. This is a global obsession, right?

Why? Money and fun. We got our first PNS (Sony DSC-P20, 1mp) to shoot stuff to sell on eBay. So it was strictly a tool to earn bits of cash. But soon I started re-shooting the world around me, and got PaintShopPro, and found that pics are just grist for the mill, input to be manipulated psychotically. I do it for the LULZ.

Why? Necessity. We got better PNSs (Sony P10, V1, W7) and I found I had to shoot people & places & things, faces & art & patterns, especially when we started spending much of our time driving around Latin America, walking thru strange locales. I shoot, like my sis-in-law writes, because I must.

Now I have my K20D, and four-score-and-seven lenses, and I may wonder, why? Hmmm... It's not to "get my fat ass out from the computer" because I PP everything and may spend 20x longer editing than shooting. It's not for artistic glory, 'cause most of my output is never seen. I don't kid myself that I add to any historical record, any artistic schools, anything tangible. I just do it. I guess obsession is the best word.