Giving back to the community - Poll

Trevlan

My fellow Dgrinners, the mini contest I was holding for our newest Dgrin members is over. I need your help to assist me in determining who will receive the membership to smugmug. I wish I could give one to all of them.

The following people were selected in order of entry. Please vote for your favorite. Please keep in mind that this is not a photo contest, but an essay contest on why that person became a photographer.

#1
Geoff - Baldmountain

baldmountain wrote:

"Why I'm a photographer in too many words or less"



There are a couple parts to this essay so bear with me.

You may be wondering why I posted this picture. There are two reasons.

I work for a company called Mobicious. We have a website called SnapMyLife that is kind of like a version of twitter using pictures. Specifically, pictures from mobile phones. To help support the company I started taking hundreds of pictures to upload to the site. This picture is one of them. It’s a picture of my son sitting next to me on an ottoman. I took it with a camera phone. The only light was a small 40watt Ott light. The quality of the image is just wretched but I really like the image. This image made me realize that I was starting to visualize images before I took them. To think a bit about how the image was going to look and what I could do to make it better. This image also made me realize that camera phones are horrible. These both started me on a quest for good images. Not just decent family snapshots, but images at least as good as in any magazine.

The second reason is I don’t want to win. Yes, I’d like a free year of SmugMug. But I want to win it by winning one of the SharpShooter challenges. You see, I’m on a quest for the best images I can possibly make. I’m reading voraciously and taking scads of pictures. At least a few every day. I hunt places and things to shoot. I try shots I don’t have the equipment for and see if I can make them work. I test ideas and delete rubbish shots mercilessly. I jump into threads here that I have no right to expecting to be corrected. I submit shots to contests and challenges even though I know I’m going to have my hat handed to me. I’m leaping way out of my abilities so I can grasp something beyond what is expected...

So why do I like photography?

Hmmm... Growing up I wanted to be an artist. My parents were concerned that I wouldn’t be able to make a living as an artist so I chose Physics. My dad then convinced me that I’d end up as an engineer if I studied Physics so why not take Engineering instead?

In Engineering school as electives I took the music theory class the music majors took and got an A. I took the drawing class that the art majors took and got an A. I squeaked by my engineering classes and aced my art electives. I graduated and got a job as an engineer and still write software for a living. But my whole life I’ve been drawn to the arts. Music moves me like nothing else. (It kills me that I am tone deaf, have no rhythm and can’t sing a note. I’d love to be able to play but my brain just isn’t wired to make music.) The first time I saw Rodin’s Psyche at the MFA in Boston it made me weep. My family has to drag me kicking and screaming from the museum when we go...

Yeah, but why Photography?

After all I’ve said you still have to ask?

Well, here is a little more...

I was wandering through Barnes & Noble and came across a copy of “The Photography Book”. The one by Phaidon Press. It’s a short biography and a single representative image from 500 different photographers. I started flipping through it. I got to the end and started over... I had to go back to the beginning several times and slowed down to look closer. I spent an hour looking at the book and came away shaking. I had to put the book down and walk away because the images were so powerful I couldn’t handle it. That was when I realized that I was going to immerse myself in Photography...

#2
Karin - ic4u

ic4u wrote:

"Final Days"

Why did I become a photographer? Well, there are several reasons. First of all my mother put together photo album, after photo album for my brother and myself, documenting our lives, something I will always treasure. My dad always had a camera, for the same purpose, documenting important, and not so important events! I can remember once or twice a year we would gather together to watch his slideshow presentations. (Yeah, the old kind of slideshows)! They were always great times.
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When I was in high school, one of my cousins was getting into photography, and I was intrigued by what she was able to do with the camera. She was able to capture the purest of emotion from candid shots of strangers, which I thought was amazing, so I decided to take the plunge into photography. I started taking classes; I entered contests through the County Fair, and others, and had some success, which helped to encourage me along. Before having kids (when I actually had time) I worked as a newspaper photographer, which I enjoyed a lot, and would do again in a heartbeat. I am not as technically capable as I would like to be, but am always trying to improve my skills as time and money permits! My greatest joy with photography is capturing special moments amongst family and friends.
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This photo I chose as my favorite may seem like a snapshot to most, but it has such emotion behind it for me. This was taken in December 2004. Our oldest dog Jake (with the white face) had just recently been diagnosed with cancer. We decided to buy a live Christmas tree and plant it in his honor. The look in my oldest son’s face, next to Jake, says it all. Jake was more human than he was a dog. He is irreplaceable, but with photos like these, will be in our memories forever. Sadly, we had to put Jake down on January 21, 2005, the hardest thing we have ever had to do yet as a family.
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So, what it all boils down to for me is the ability to capture special moments and document time and history in a way that evokes emotion for myself and hopefully for others as well.
Thanks for taking the time to read…Karin

#3
Alex - Anonymouscuban

anonymouscuban wrote:

I feel uncomfortable even saying that. I don’t really consider myself a photographer. Do I want people to think of me as one? Yes. Do I feel I am one? No.

I see myself as more of a person that owns a nice camera that is aspiring to become one. So the real question for me is, “Why do I want to become a photographer?” There is really no one answer to that question so I will try my best to summarize the most important two.

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All my life I have been drawn to creative endeavors. As a child, I would often spend hours doodling or drawing the cartoon characters I watched on TV. In high school and my first year in college, I took art and music appreciation courses and farted around with the idea of being an art major. Well, life hit me with a hard left hook called “reality” at age 20. My girlfriend who I was living with – another Oprah all together – told me she was pregnant. I was terrified! But, I was also as happy as I ever remember being before that moment in my life.

I was to be a father and that trumped any other priority in my life. The question of what I was going to do when I grew up was answered with one little red plus sign on a pee-stick. I was now responsible for thre lives, not just one.

Shortly after that day, I took on a full-time job and reduced my school schedule to part-time. We got married ($115 in LV, still have the receipt from the ATM withdrawal) and 9-months later we had our one and only child Olivia. We struggled for many years, but eventually Mom and I both finished school; Mom became an accountant and I became a project manager for a medical device company.

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So what does all of this have to do with being a photographer?

Forward 17 years: I have a new girlfriend and am ready to pursue my creative ambitions again.

Wait, before you start thinking bad things about me, that new girlfriend is actually my wife. Now that our daughter is almost old enough to begin her life as an adult, my wife and I have begun to enjoy the things we were never able to enjoy when we were younger. We are traveling now, going to museums and just trying to spend quality time with one another. One problem, I don't really like museums and she doesn't like to surf.


So photography has given my wife and me an activity that we can enjoy together. Something that we both enjoy equally. It often gives us a reason to jump in the car a take a drive someplace that we would never visit if not for the interest of taking pictures. She grabs her P&S, I grab my Nikon D300 and we go. Best of all, we have the pictures to share and enjoy for years to come.

The greatest thing though is that it has allowed me an outlet for my creative side, something that I haven’t had since I was 20 years old. I see photography as a way to paint pictures of places and things, sometimes even mundane stuff, and present them in way that appeals to people, at least that is my goal. I want people to see the things from my perspective; to see the beauty that I see in just about everything. I mean to be able to take a picture of an egg in a bowl and have someone look at it in admiration… that’s awesome! I wish I could do this with a canvas and paint, but unfortunately I’m not talented enough. So it’s a camera and lens for me.


Thanks for reading (kind of long).

#4
Mary - Maryboo

MaryBoo wrote:

I didn’t choose to become a photographer, but I have evolved into one over the years. Like most people, my life was rolling along with a simple point & shot camera. Sometimes I would remember to get it out of the closet to record a special moment in my life, but often it would remain forgotten in the closet. Then my children were born and those special moments occurred with much greater frequency. And the camera was no longer in the closet, but now in my purse. And I took so many pictures of those wonderful creatures that I wore out three different point and shoot cameras before telling my husband to buy me a “real” camera for my birthday. Little did I know how that simple request would change my life and those around me.

Seven years have now pasted since that birthday and we are a “camera crazy” family as everyone (mom, dad and 2 daughters 8 & 11) has become a photographer. Not only do we use our cameras to record our special family events, but we go out together to capture the beauty of the world around us. The camera has brought my husband and me closer together as we now have a shared hobby. We plan day trips and vacations around places & things that we want to shoot and date nights become photo-ops. And cameras in the hands of my children have taught them to appreciate nature and learn more about the places that we visit. Without the cameras, they are bored and anxious to get to the hotel pool, but give them a camera and now they want to venture out of the car and take a picture, or two, or more…

Being a photographer is not about your talent, but about your passion - your passion for life, for beauty, and for the special moments that we can find all around us. And a photographer will seek out those moments, as they rarely just happen. You have to know when the tide is low, or the moon is full. You have to know what time the sunrises and which way is east. You have to get yourself out of bed at 4am and outside when it’s 10 degrees. You have get yourself to the Tulip Festival or the Solstice Festival. And you have to drag your family to all of the nearby National Parks and scenic areas you can track down.

Picking a photo to go with this essay was a challenge. In the end I selected this one of my girls, since they are the reason that my interest photography started. This one is my favorite “First day of School” picture. They are so happy in this picture. You can see their love for each other and how excited they are to be starting school. The story behind the picture is that in the 18 months after this was taken, the girls lost both grandmothers and a favorite grand-uncle to illness. Their smiles dimmed for a time, along with my passion for photography. But time is a great healer and their smiles are bright again, and my passion is once again starting to burn.

Mary
www.cherryvalleyphoto.com

#5
Tim - Autonomous

Autonomous wrote:

Never once in my life this ever occurred on my mind, that I would be sort-of like a photographer. I'm not a photographer, yet. I'm very new to this wonderful world that I recently just discovered about a month ago. The first time I dwindled myself upon discovering the beauty of photography, something inside my heart sparked. Something burned inside me, that I honestly don't really understand what. As the truth would have it, it's my passion. I thought that this is probably just mistaken, but the more I stepped deeper into photography, my passion just grew stronger and I could not help myself but just to listen to my heart and to really hone my natural talent more, as my teacher put it.
It's taken me so long to open up my eyes to realize that this is one of my hidden talent, a talent where it helped me to shape my character, and myself. It's true what they say, one picture are worth a thousand worth, and in that one picture alone, I was able to tell the whole story of what I wanted to perceive; I was able to express myself in a subtle way, yet obvious, and discover the pure magically relieved feeling that no words can describe, and yet so freely joyful. Photography has helped to respect more around me, to respect the beauty of the world itself, as they're scattered everywhere and probably won't last long, and they scream for their natural beauty of themselves to be captured, to be recreated in a story before they eternally vanish from our eyes.
I didn't choose to be a photographer. I never even thought of this. But little did I know that as I grow up towards my adulthood, photography is one of my hidden gem of talent that's buried deep inside me, waiting to be discovered and to be honed to perfection. I'm glad I discovered that gem, because now I can combine it with my creativeness that's always in me, but I don't know how to express them. Now that I do, both of my skills are working harmoniously, both are in the process of being processed so that they may be perfect, and help me shape my character.

"Me, myself, and I"

This was great. I wish I could just add Private and Photobug, and everyone else who participated, to the poll. I'm sure we'll come up with something else for the new year! Thanks to all who participated, I know first hand, how difficult this is.

The poll will end in 4 days and the winner will be announced then!

Trevlan

BUMP! Get your last minute votes in. The poll with be over in a few hours. ;-)

Trevlan

The poll is over and I can't see the results. What did I do wrong?

Trevlan

I still can't see the polls, but I was told Anonymouscuban is the poll leader. Congratulations!!!!

Thanks everyone for participating. We all are winners!

DJ-S1

Dang, I missed the chance to vote! Oh well, they all seem deserving to me! Trev, again, thanks for doing this.

ic4u

Congratsclap

anonymouscuban

WOW... I can't believe I won this. Honestly, I wasn't going to enter but the question posed really got me thinking and then I started writing. I entered never thinking I'd win. I just thought it was a nice way of introducing myself to the community.

Thanks to all for voting for me!

Alex