What matters most



There are many things that one can study about photography. Over the years, I've personally obsessed over the technical and the artistic side of the craft to insane degrees of study. I've spent hours of reading, practicing, failing, rinse and repeat. What I've learned is that if that is all that takes hold of your motivation, you will quickly burn out. 

That is what almost happened to me about a year ago. I found myself extremely unhappy with my work. I felt like I could get better, but I needed more lessons, better gear, more time, more travel, etc. But I was missing something big. Something really significant that was right in front of me: my family. I felt so down about this that I did an entire series of out-of-focus shots depicting things in my life that I was missing. The out-of-focus series was a wake-up call to the key piece that I had failed to see in photography...the emotion and sentimentality of it.

You see, most people love photography for the emotional connection tied to it. This is why we take family pictures. We want to remember. We want to capture experiences and emotions as we felt them. I tried to rebel against this idea for a long time. I felt that photographing people was a necessary evil, and I pushed it to an art form only to avoid the idea of the emotional piece. 

Once I began to understand that photography can make significant images not only to me but to others, a new desire and drive was born. The desire to capture amazing moments and feelings. Add this to my studies of art and the technical details and photography was reborn for me. 

What about you? Why do you take pictures? Why do you want to be better at photography?



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