What makes you tick.. ?

What is it that makes you want to take a photo? Is it capturing a moment in time that no one can do like you? Is it looking at your environment and composing it into a piece of art? Do you thrive a being in the thick of an electrifying event with people pushing you in the back while the lights are everywhere and everytime the shutter goes "click" you get this funny feeling inside? Is the event of two people joining together as one in front of God and man at the wedding ceremony... capturing every deep look of love in the couples' eyes, the preparation, the fine details that make one day in time timeless?

What is it that you naturally accel at?

What are you doing to improve yourself at what you do?

Or do you just take pictures for money????? Is it "just the dollar" that gets you excited about lookin through your viewfinder?

What's your passion? What gets you butterflies? What do your natural talents point you toward? What?

I would love to know..

I enjoy the fact that I have the ability to at least try to capture a moment as I see it.

I don't make money from this. I've got a job that does that for me.

So really, it comes down to the pure joy of it...I'll also admit, since I like gadgets and am in the Technology field, it appeals to that side of me as well.

with me it started as wanting to capture moments like no one else was bothering to, I think I have have a box of prints in my parents attic from various points around the globe.

Now it means I don't have to pay someone to photograph my son, and I get paid myself occasionally,

I love it though and am determined to do more artistic work in the next few years

I've realized that people make me tic.. I love their emotions, how they react to things, special moments in their lives. I do like making money from it, but I really dig showing people how I see things. Not to be pushy, but to share.

It's not a matter of I want to take a shot. More of I have a vision in my head, clear as day of something, somewhere, somebody that I think needs to be captured. I want to show myself what I can do. I want to preserve time, and memories. When I look back even a few years ago I don't regret anything they way I regret not taking a photo when I had the oppurtunity. On the few times when I left the camera in the bag I always feel like there was a moment that I didn't take advantage of. Sometimes i'm not quite sure if i'm driving the camera or it's driving me. And then there's the sense that i'm at my most secure behind a lens with my finger on the shutter. I'm the most aware, my memories are more clear because of the camera.. I think it's because the anonymity that the camera gives you. i've always felt that folks aren't paying particular attention to me, but rather the camera, they're always quick to look at what i'm shooting and i'm free to do what I want and what pleases me.

Sari

I just want to preserve memories, Maybe what I've done and where I've been.

what gets me excited when i look through the viewfinder, is being better than i was the minute before i took the picture. weather it be on the technical side or the artistic side.

and to see it after its been uploaded onto the comp.. thats when i get really happy.

I am not sure what exactly does it for me...

I think it is just the fact that I am creating art, art that I enjoy and love. The fact that I do\can make money from it, is just a bonus!
When I get a camera in my hands, I just picture the world through the camera's lens (lol), I try seeing what things would look like through the camera, and with the bokeh, and then I, just for fun, will figure to myself what settings I would use, and what strength of fill flash I would need. I am a freak who loves photography
I just love creating art with my camera, and my passion for photography...
Not much more I can say!

My favorite part is when you see the shutter close just so that it blocked your view of the apex of the swing or jump whatever.

I do it almost every day for a buck and have been lucky enough to have been doing it full time since the day I got out of college. It allows me to do what I love for money and give me the money to be able to take photographs for myself. Sometimes the two meet but if they don't what I do for me is mine and can't be edited by any art director, graphic designer, or anybody else. Theres probably not a day that goes by that I'm not doing something directly involved with photography. I've been doing it for a long time and I still LOVE IT and have been able to support myself and my family with it. I've been VERY LUCKY...

Should finish my thought before I push submit. I still get excited when I see a possible image that fits with a particular body of work I've been working on. I'm in the car driving and I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye and become almost unaware of anything else but the image I've seen in my minds eye and trying to capture that image and the real mojo is when I've got it. I usually know kinda like when MJ would put up the three pointer, he knows when it left his hands or Tiger strikes the 30 ft putt he knows when he hits it. Ya kinda get in a world of your own nothing else seems to engage your other senses but what you are seeing and capturing that vision. Its that right brain creative kind of thing that is SO ADDICTIVE.

Great thread... I agree with a lot of the sentiments above.

I honestly have no idea what drew me to photography as a kid, and it's been an on-again-off-again hobby but my recent foray into DSLRs has me really excited about photography again.

Anyways I do it now because I'm really enjoying the entire process. I see sunsets or scenery or people I just can't get out of my vision. Like I said it's a hobby for me but I really like being able to provide pictures to the people in my life who deserve good images of themselves. I like being able to capture the feel of a canoe or a lake or a city or a band or a person or a weekend or an event and be able to look back on it whenever I want... I like being able to decorate my home with the pictures I've taken of people and places that are important to me or just pictures of an amazing sunset where I happened to be in the right place at the right time and managed to capture a solid exposure. I also like that my enthusiasm is responsible for making people around me take more pictures and on at least one occasion spreading the contagious and consuming affliction most of us here already have (would that be the "shutterbug"?).

I also really like everything I've learned as newbie at POTN and I like knowing that I will continue to get better the more I work at it.

Cheers.

saravrose wrote in post #5335885
It's not a matter of I want to take a shot. More of I have a vision in my head, clear as day of something, somewhere, somebody that I think needs to be captured. I want to show myself what I can do. I want to preserve time, and memories. When I look back even a few years ago I don't regret anything they way I regret not taking a photo when I had the oppurtunity. On the few times when I left the camera in the bag I always feel like there was a moment that I didn't take advantage of. Sometimes i'm not quite sure if i'm driving the camera or it's driving me. And then there's the sense that i'm at my most secure behind a lens with my finger on the shutter. I'm the most aware, my memories are more clear because of the camera.. I think it's because the anonymity that the camera gives you. i've always felt that folks aren't paying particular attention to me, but rather the camera, they're always quick to look at what i'm shooting and i'm free to do what I want and what pleases me.

Sari

totally get what you mean - its like i HAVE to take photos, dont have a choice lol

i saw this quote on a tv show which featured farrah grey (millionaire at 14) and he had this to say about how you choose your life's career:

1) ask yourself - what comes easy to me, but hard to others?
2) what would i do for years and years, what would get me out of bed in the morning excited to be doing - even if i never got paid a cent?
3) what is a way i can give back, be of service?

for me, thats photography - he said if you do that thing which is the answer to all the above questions, you can live the rest of your life never having to 'work' again, because youre doing what you love every day