Photography and Your Photos

Photography Termed The Drawing With Light

Photography delights us as an art, yet it hides so many practical functions and opportunities that we have used it for so long without yet exhausting its potential. The term photography was coined by Sir John Herschel in 1839 to define ‘drawing with light’ from the Greek terms ‘photos’ and ‘graphe’.

From its early days, photography captured the interest and attention of both artists and scientists, as they understood the possibility to record, study and explore all sorts of natural phenomena.

While a pictorialist will use photos to represent or render reality, there are lots of other users who will rely on photography for data storage, recognition and surveillance. The police, the military and the security forces make such usage of the photographic science.

There is also a social role that photography plays. We all want to appear in photos at those events that mark our existence in a significant way. People take photos at birthdays, weddings, all sorts of family celebrations, at graduation ceremonies, on vacation, when a baby is born and so on.

Recording Your Family History With Photographs

Some families record their history through photography, from the mom and dad’s wedding to the first baby shower, to the baby baptism, the first months of life, the first steps and so on. Lots of American families have dozens of scrapbooks with special topics reflecting a certain aspect of their life together. Photography tells stories, it supports messages and it often becomes a form of entertainment. While some take it as a hobby for their personal joy, others develop it into a profession.

Photography seems to be a tourist’s best friend, because when you are on vacation, visiting sights and meeting new people, you are tempted to see everything through the lens of the camera. No matter how cool this seems to be, we have to wondered whether this gaze through the camera isn’t over-rated. I personally don’t like going on a sightseeing tour and watching the sights through my lens. No matter how bad I want to get memories, I prefer to first live them, and only then turn the experience into a memory.

My feeling about this photography craze is that we turn the present into a memory as it happens, without actually enjoying it. We’re delaying the joy of the moment for when we get the pictures and we start marveling at how great it was. Self-awareness changes how you make use of photography.