Summer is in full swing on July 19’s National Play Day and it’s the perfect day to unleash your inner child, spark your creativity, and learn why play is an important part of living a happy life. And that includes Photography.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
People who are not photographers but just regular folks, often ask why I like photography so much. They sometimes know I have other hobbies such as model trains, collecting books and building Lego, all analog interests. Photography has been a large part of my life since I was eight years old and my parents gave me a hand-me-down Brownie box camera and I made my first photograph.
It’s More Than Just a Hobby
I think photography is the best hobby/avocation/profession in the world because it has two aspects that make it more than the sum of its parts.
How I Made this Photograph: I made this image of 17-mile Farm while cold weather testing a Canon EOS 80D at 17 Mile Farm near Parker, Colorado. Temperatures were only in the low 30’s and while that’s not cold by Colorado standards, that might be a chilly temp where you live. The camera and EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens (at 18mm) performed without a hitch. Shot in Landscape Picture Style with an exposure of 1/640 sec at f/14 and ISO 400.
One of the less obvious, to other people anyway, is the way that we photographers see the world. Photographers know that their art/craft is all about light and they see and appreciate light better than non-photographers that, for us, ultimately increases the simple act of being alive. One upon a time Mary was participating in an outdoor workout session and turned around to see the backlighting behind her fellow student’s colorful outfits. She remarked about it to the person next to her, who, no surprise, didn’t get it.
We can also be forces for good by making images showing photographs of a landscape that shoul be preserved or it can be as simple as making portraits of loved ones that they and other family members will cherish. Years ago I wrote what about the important role that we, as image makers, play in the lives of people we may not even know. During one Christmas season, a young couple approached me in O’Brien Park asking me to make a photograph of them so they could give one of their parents who was quite ill. It’s a gift that’s better than the warmest socks you can find.
I think that we underestimate the many positive effects our photographs can have on the world and the people around us. Though I’m often critical about the role social media plays in today’s society there’s no doubt it has some positive aspects too. Any one of your images can be seen thousands of times, influencing people and creating an avalanche of good will for the subject of the photograph ans well as the photographer.
There is no doubt this explosion of images that we experience was stimulated by the immediacy of digital capture but digital cameras accomplished something else, although it may have taken a while to take root, and that was to stimulate the use of film and film cameras saving these instruments from the dustbin of history. This trend brings into play a whole other group of people, maybe an entire generation, of photographers who are all about making and sharing how they see world with others by using film. There is no other medium that does this as perfectly—there’s no translation required—as a photograph. Photography truly is the universal language.
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