The Madness of Photography

"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness." -Aristotle

I have to admit I am not a creative person when it comes to words. I am not a particularly eloquent writer when it comes to words. Nor am I particularly witty when it comes to speaking. I tend to stumble a lot over my words when speaking to other people. I tend to repeat myself and get nervous easily. Even typing something longer form like this blog posting takes a lot of effort for me to think of what I would like to put down in words. I suppose this is why I ended up taking a more visual approach to creative hobbies. Why I use photography as my outlet for my imagination and find it somewhat simpler than trying to convey those same emotions using text. It is easier for me to create using photographs than it is for me to type about something hence why I have Thesarus.com open in another browser window to help me put into words my feelings here.

On there internet there are a lot of quotes about talented intelligence and insanity being two sides of the same coin. I would be inclined to agree. Sometimes, you have to be a bit mad to be a genius. Or in some cases very mad. When you think about it, photography is one of those creative areas where you have to be very mad to get into it in any serious manner. You spend ridiculous amounts of money on what are basically boxes and cylinders made of plastic, metal and glass just to capture hundreds upon thousands upon millions of moments of time, frozen into either film or digital data. Large amounts of moments frozen and out of all those we select only a few to be displayed, be it in an art gallery, the internet or even just a small family album. Only a crazy person would want to go into a creative area which is simultaneously extremely destructive.

Photography is also one of those creative arts that has a bit of a dark side to it. One that in many ways is somewhat exploitative and dare I say, voyeuristic. You are taking moments in time and freezing them for all to see. You are basically stealing a place's or a person's very soul and essence, putting it on display to the whole world. You are creating from a passive position, where you do not get involved in it Always observing, but never getting involved in the situation directly. It may be why photography can drive people to madness, always striving for the perfect shot. Never feeling any of your work is good enough. Doing so by watching and observation. Constantly taking those moments of time and reducing them to a still picture that reveals the very soul of the model or landscape and often that of the photographer themselves.

I never originally meant to get into photography as a creative art. In many ways it was originally a meer tool to allow me to jog my memory. A means to an end to allow me to continue to relive happy and interesting moments. But as I went deeper down the rabbit hole of taking pictures, I transitioned more and more from just taking photographs to remember and more taking photographs to create. To reveal the emotions both in front of the camera and behind in each moment seen. To indulge in my creative side. On reflection, the whole passion to take pictures did not happen recently but instead happened a lot earlier, when a relative got me a cheap 35mm film compact camera as a present. It was a every simple mechanism and used a manual dial to advance each shot, but it stirred up within me a desire to show everyone else what I could see, from my litteral and emotional perspective. From there, I did lose some interest in creative photography until I got my hands on my first digital camera, a Fuji Finepix 6900 zoom. At that point the fire was lit and there was no turning back.

For a while I bumbled along in a rut photography wise. The 6900 was good but I felt like I was reaching the limitiations of what it could do. When the chance came, I ended up moving from the Fuji to a Sony Alpha A100. For all its limitations, this entry level DSLR allowed me to take more creative shots. Large amounts of money was used getting various accessories. Portrait handles, tripods, lenses. All in an attempt to look and feel like one of the "professionals" until I ended up with a monstrosity that no longer resembled a DSLR and more like a serious piece of photographic equipment. However, I still felt like I was at the mercy of the circuitry inside my camera. For a while I experimented with the Program mode on the A100 and often came away disappointed when it didn't quite catch the shot as well as I would like.

The first epipheny came when I attended a cosplay photography panel at Auchinawa 2008. I picked up a fair amount of advice there and took it to heart. The second epipheny came at Ayacon 2013, where another panel I attended gave me the confidence to look into using the full Manual mode on the camera. From that point on, I could not look back. I don't know why it took so long but I finally understood how instead of compromising with the camera to get it to do what I wanted it to do but instead to wrangle the camera into making the shot I wanted. At that point, I was well and truly a shutterbug.

Today, I don't get as much chance to use my camera as much as I could due to the way my work is but when I have the chance I enyjoy the opportunity as fully as I can. I have recently moved onto using a Sony Alpha A700 and retired my trusty A100 as it's shortcomings, mainly the propensity to overheat and shutoff in intensive use, finally meant I had to look at something more robust. One day I hope to own a full frame body to really take impressive shots but no matter the equipment I use, I am reminded of this quote by Ansel Adams.

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."