I was browsing through some old family pics today and began to wonder what motivates people when taking photographs. My family snaps are just that - snapshots, of interest only to my family, not to be inflicted on the world at large
! But it got me wondering more generally about motivation in photography.
It seems to me that some of us take pictures as records, some capture personality (of people or pets) in portraits, some seem motivated by the technical challenges, in other pictures the abstract shines through, and yet others capture a moment in time.
Personally, family snaps apart, I try to identify what it is that first caught my eye in a potential photographic situation (illuminated veins of a leaf, moody Cumbrian weather, early morning tranquility or whatever), and then try to capture this in the final image (with varying degrees of success...). The 'purpose' of the image is to try to capture this.
So, the questions are - what motivates you, and what's the purpose of your pics?