Today’s Post by Joe Farace
People, not-photographers but just regular folks, often ask my why I like photography so much. They sometimes know that I have other interests such as model trains, reading and Lego (all analog interests) but photography has been a big part of my life since I was eight years old.
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.
One of the less obvious—to others anyway—is the way we see the world. Photographers know that their art/craft is about light and they see and appreciate light better than non-photographers that, for people like use, ultimately increases the simple act of being alive. One upon a time Mary was at an outdoor workout and turned around to see the backlighting behind the colorful outfits of her fellow students. She remarked about it to the person next to her, who, no surprise here, didn’t get it.
We can also be forces for good by making images showing beautiful photographs of a landscape that needs to 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 we, as image makers, play in the lives of people around us. Take at look at Mary’s portrait of her parents that was made on her mother’s 90th birthday and hopefully you’ll see what I mean.
I think that we underestimate the many positive effects of our photographs has 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 that it has some positive aspects too. One of your images can be Facebooked, Tweeted, and Pinned thousands of times, influencing people and creating an avalanche of good will for the photographer and more importantly the subject of the photograph.
There is no doubt this explosion of images we experience was stimulated by the immediacy of digital capture but digital cameras accomplished something else—although it may have taken a while—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, maybe an entire generation, of photographers who are all about making and sharing how they see world with others by using film. And there is no other medium that does this as perfectly—no translation required—as a photograph. Photography truly is the universal language.
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