Contemplating what draws us to certain subject matter can be quite a thought-provoking exercise. For many photographs, there is typically a careful, deductive thought process going on. Whether it is a conscious one or not also plays a part. With time often being a limiting factor, someone decides “I am going to photograph this instead of that.”
There are, of course, volumes of clinical psychological studies that show how “pretty pictures” trigger chemicals in our brain that is self-rewarding. This gets reinforced through social media and “likes” – but ultimately can be quite superficial and fleeting. But I believe curiosity can be a strong motivating factor. Often when I am in the woods, it is nothing more than saying to myself “hey, isn’t that interesting…“
In wandering through my archives, I have quite a few photographs of this type. Sometimes they make for interesting photographs, often they do not. They don’t need a lot of philosophical jibber-jabber to contemplate their connection to the universe. They were never meant to have a final destination in a gallery or on someone’s wall or have killer reach on social media. They were explorations of my own and perhaps understood by me and me only.
I am OK with that.
“hey, isn’t that interesting…“ is one of my sayings. However, I have come home with images I’d forgotten I’d even taken. That can happen when I’m truly in the moment, letting it happen. Whatever that is.
I can relate very much to this!
Beautiful texture and color. I like the mood.
Thank you!
Not all photos were meant for the wall, as you say. Even then, a series of these types of images might well make for a nice project in pdf or folio format. They mean something to you and I suspect such a series would mean something to other folks as well.
A future submission perhaps…
I photograph what interests me as the majority of us do. We start out in it for ourselves. Sometimes it goes elsewhere but often it does not. I hope that others find something about them of interest whether in some cases the subject is beauty or simply design, color, or something else that makes the image worth making. This image interests me for a few reasons. First of all the lighting. The singular color and texture of the main subject. The curiosity, its there, as to why everything else is “drab”. I can’t say whether I would have seen it on the forest flor or photografed it but I am glad that you did. Yep. That was on purpose. 🙂
Your observations about the image (thanks) are exactly what made it catch my eye. I suspect it was a more recent one that had fallen on others that had been there awhile. Maybe blown by the wind from
somewhere else as it has its own signs of decay.
p.s. I appreciate the sneaky use of “photografed” ? It didn’t go unnoticed.
The longer I’m doing “all this” the more I think that one’s own explorations are the only thing that really matters. Anyone can do pretty pictures, but only you can be you and express yourself through these pictures. If someone else thinks of some of these as pretty pictures whom they want to hang on the wall, even better, but that’s not the primary motivation why anyone originally picked up a camera and began to observe and photograph the world. Social media is an enormous trap that misleads people in taking a path of popularity, instead of personality. A mistake.
There are even some of my own photographs I wouldn’t want to stare at on my wall 24/7. The photographs I do have up are more representative of special connections to places I love. But even some of the “pretty” stuff can be emotionally vacant.
Yes, curiosity is a big motivator for me, too, and I often take photos of things that are interesting purely for the sake of documentation. Sometimes those photos evolve into something more, other times, not, but as long as I keyword the file in LR so I can find them, I’m happy to have the images. When I began to see leaves caught in or on other leaves, ferns, etc., on their way to earth, I thought it looked interesting so I photographed it. Pretty soon I started keywording those photos “caught” and before I knew it, I had a whole suite of photos of things that were caught. Your leaf goes way beyond interesting – I think almost anyone would be drawn to that beauty, the way you photographed it!
That keywording is a great way to build a series of connected images that may have never started with that intent. I have a few myself – often just left up to the opportunity presenting itself again (if ever).
I’m glad you like the leaf. Because of the mud-caked leaves around it, I imagined a lot of people would see it as a negative.
Some photographs appeal to me on some level, but I can’t for the life of me identify why. So I hold on to them, thinking that one day I’ll figure it out. In browsing my archives, I’ll come back across them from time to time, study them again, confirm I’m still attracted to them but make no progress on the why. I suspect a few of them are linked to the memory of the time/day I took them, but that doesn’t explain all of them. The brain is strange, and often I think mine to be stranger still.
Sounds pretty familiar. I am also faced with many where I forget why and the photo has no appeal or significance later on. I still hang on to them.
It’s your last sentence that has the most impact for me. I imagine we all have thousands of those images that have a strong personal connection but garner little attention when released to the wilderness. Eventually, I at least, will stop punishing these poor creatures and keep them home. I often think how odd it is that out of the millions of people on the internet I can still create something that only strikes a chord with only a few. Perhaps it’s something to cherish.
I am sure it is natural to seek some sort of validation from others on what we create. But I even find myself contemplating work vs. reward situations even if the reward is my own enjoyment of what is produced.