For me it is all about personal satisfaction. It is relaxing, enjoyable and therapeutic to me. It is not about fame or about wealth or some warped need for attention...
In this digital age there are hundreds of millions of cameras out there. Digital photography has made the process very cheap and very easy. Photographers are everywhere. Every cell phone has a camera and many of the newer ones are pretty good. George Orwell's 1984 prediction has come true... Big Brother is watching you! Video cameras are everywhere. Security cameras, weather cameras, traffic cameras, body cameras, dash cameras, the list goes on and on. There are probably millions of images being captured every second, somewhere in the world.
I would be pretty naive to think that my photographs are the exception, that they are better, and that they will command more attention than any others. I like to think I put a lot more thought and skill and experience into my work than the average photographer. But I guess that's what I am... better than average. I am not seeking that moment in the sun when I can be the "flash in the pan" or the "flavor of the week". No matter how important my images are to me, to the rest of the world, who are bombarded by countless images every day, it is unlikely that I will be remembered. And that's fine, because I don't make photographs for anyone else... I do it for me.
I could quit my day job and become a full time professional artist. But, I would probably end up becoming yet another starving artist. So many artists live from hand to mouth, barely able to support themselves and their families. They have to take on odd jobs to make ends meet, or undertake artistic endeavors that they really have no passion for... they just need the money. It might be noble, but to me it is not realistic. Their work sometimes gains value after they die, but they are often not recognized or rewarded while they are alive. Photography is even worse than other more traditional artforms such as painting or scuplting, as many don't consider it a true art. Why give up my career, which provides me and my family with a good standard of living? My job provides me with the resources and the opportunities to go out and make photographs of things that I enjoy and get satisfaction out of. I actually enjoy many aspects of my career, and a lot of the challenges. But like any job, it gets boring and repetitive after nearly 35 years. There are certainly aspects of my job that I don't enjoy, but I think this can be said about any career, including that of a professional photographer. The time is coming for me to slow down and retire, not to make a career change. I have no desire to become a professional photographer, and much prefer to remain an amateur. If you look up amateur in the dictionary the definition is... "a person who engages in some art, science, sport, etc. for the pleasure and the love of it, rather than for money"
I get great pleasure and satisfaction from being out exploring the world. There are so many wonderful things to see and experience, particularly in nature. My photographs are a side effect of these experiences. When I print them and view them it brings back my memories of times and places that I have experienced. I enjoy the artistic aspect of creating a pleasing composition and recording it on film. I also really enjoy the technical aspect of tinkering with the chemistry and the processes that are part of the darkroom experience. If I am able, to a limited degree, to share my experiences with others, either on line, or in a gallery exhibition, or just by providing others with prints of my work, that is a bonus and a fringe benefit. It is not my purpose in taking the photograph. Don't get me wrong, its nice to get a compliment for something you've done..., it's just that this is not my primary objective. Hopefully some of my images will invoke an emotional response in the viewer, but no doubt it will be a very different response from my own. Mine is based on a recollection of the experience, while the viewer simply sees the image for what it is.
People have a tendency to ruin my experiences for me and I much prefer to by out on my own, or with a select few close friends or family. I hate crowds, and congestion, and being trapped in the artificial world that we have created. This is the main reason that most of my images are of the natural world. I do like to make historic images that show the things left behind by people, but I rarely take photographs of people. The primary exception would be some of the personal portraits that I take of my family, but these are very private and are taken for very different reasons.
The world is becoming over populated and we are destroying the planet. I feel no desire to document that, or the wars, the poverty, the disease, the social injustices and all the bad things that man brings upon ourselves and the world around us. Considered in geological time, the total history of mankind is equivalent to the blink of an eye. Think about that and try to wrap your head around it. The world has been around for billions of years. Countless species have come and gone before us, and the planet has seen vast and extensive changes, and will continue to do so. In that context how much importance can be placed on human beings in general, not to mention a collection of photographs...?
I'm very selfish... I make photographs for me!
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