Photography Can Be A Blend Of Art And Communication

To enjoy photography more, learning the many facets to it's utility as a powerful form of communication is a wise activity. At photography's most basic level, you're capturing light available bouncing off of subjects and placing it on a medium such as film or digital storage. That's all it is until a photographer puts their own personal touch to the capture.

As a photographer, you can edit the medium to suit your purposes. So what do you want to do with it? Professionals have to follow paths that generate income. They specialize and form images that will encourage others to buy their work. They've put effort into finding out what they can produce that people will buy. If they're to survive, it's their business first and their passion second. There are even some professional photographers that would enjoy nothing more than never seeing a camera again, but they have to make a living and it's their chosen profession. As an amateur, you're open to take that medium and create anything you'd like. 

As an amateur photographer, I choose no specialty whatsoever. I take photos of what I find interesting. Wherever my shoes take me, I look for shots of interest. I have my camera at the ready as much as possible. Here's one of my wildlife shots, a smiling deer. I wasn't stalking the deer as a professional would have. I was simply hiking and this deer appeared with a smile. Very humorous and it's something that only a camera could communicate. If I told someone, "A deer stopped to smile at me while I was hiking.", they'd think I was crazy, but here's the photo to prove that I'm not. 

Deer smiling in the woods.

As an amateur photographer, you define your work by what you choose, not a customer. Do you consider yourself an artist? You can limit your work to only that which is beautiful in the artistic sense of photography.

Tractor Silhouette In A Sunset

Street photographer?

Man Walking On The Sidewalk With An Umbrella In The Sun

Or maybe a landscape photographer?

Shoreline At Marblehead State Park In Ohio.

All of these photos are my attempt to do one thing and that's communicate, regardless of the genre that they fit in. It's a really cool world that we live in when you start looking at it with a photographer's eye and that's something worth communicating.

A great deal can be learned from studying the professionals. They've invested their lives into their work and simply studying their photos can inspire you and lead to better photos. That's not where the world is headed with photography for the most part though is it? We're posting photos to communicate to others about what we're doing, what we enjoy, where beautiful places are, cool things that we've found, what we love and enjoy, and even things that shock and horrify us. The better a person can do that, the better they can communicate, and that leads to a more fulfilling life.