Why Photography?

Why did you first pick up a camera and take a photograph?  It matters not whether the camera is part of a mobile phone, a mirrorless or compact camera and it does not matter what settings you used.  What matters is that you took a first step in a journey that not even you know where it is going to go or end.

I started taking photographs in earnest around 2008 and when I type that it hits home that I have been on a journey for a while.  I have never been academically gifted and I have never been very good with my hands in fact my only vice was reading and watching the world go by and asking a lot of questions in my head.  I found myself wondering what stories people I saw and met could tell, what stories places and objects could tell if they spoke.

I looked at photographs and tried to understand the story they were telling often forgoing the text of the article in case it did not fit my interruption of the story.  I found myself looking at detail within a photograph to see if there were more stories to be found.

I wanted to understand the world around me because at the time a lot was going on in my life and I needed somewhere to allow me to start to think things through.  Whilst I could bury my head in books that was not going to answer all my questions, so I decided to pick up a camera.  I soon found that being behind a camera gave me the space I needed.  It was something between me and all the troubles I faced and created and a world I largely did not understand.

I had no idea of what to photograph or how to or what camera I should have.  An F Stop was unknown to me as much as ISO’s or Megapixels.  I will detail why I picked cameras in another post.  For now it is just a summary what photography means to me.

I quickly found a place that I could drown out the noise around me, a place that allowed me to start to understand events past and present.  A place where I could dismantle my feelings and emotions and find some grounding to try and move on from and understand.  Whilst I am still trying to make sense of a lot of things the one thing that has allowed me to have space to think is my photography.

I am very protective of my photography, not in a defensive way due to critic but because it means so much to me.  I have found a medium that allows me to express myself and start to look at the world around me.  I soon found myself asking the same questions I did when growing up, wondering what story there were to be told and finding stories within stories.  That has been the foundation of my photography ever since.

The other foundation I have based my photographic journey on is to always respect the subject in front of my lens and to never making anyone uncomfortable.  If anyone asked me not to include them in a photograph, I have always respected that.  I despise those who use photography to abuse or take advantage of others, especially the vulnerable.

I hope that through this blog I can not only give readers an insight into my photographic and personal journey’s but hopefully inspire those who think photography might be for them.

I will leave it there for now, if you wish to see some of my work to date please take a look at the galleries section of this website.

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Simon Lrps.