Why Photography is important to me

Spent the Christmas holiday with Angela’s family, it was a nice, relaxing long weekend, lots of good food, good company, and some down time to get caught up on reading, uploading photos to Flickr, etc.

One of the sets I was uploading this weekend provided a good reminder to me of why I feel a passion about photography. The Deep South set includes a bunch of photos taken in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, and Mobile Bay, Alabama in 2004, a.k.a. before Katrina went through and really changed the landscape down there. The photos I took I cannot go down there and get again. I can certainly go down there again and see some beautiful scenery, I can enjoy my time on the Gulf Coast just as much as I did then at some point in the future. I’m sure the area is rebuilding and evolving into something different than it was before, just as every area does. Heck, the hotel we stayed at in Vegas in 2004 wasn’t even standing when we went back this fall, which is yet another indicator of how quickly things change. When you’re traveling, you’re seeing a place as it is right now. Photography allows you to not only keep those memories with you throughout the rest of your lifetime, it can also record places, and sites that you can’t go back and see again, for a wide variety of reasons.

Our house has a great many photos on display, and Angela and I both display many, many more on Flickr, or as screensavers on our computers, or just share in an email to family and friends. I’ve taken thousands of photos over the last few years, and I cherish them. Each group of shots represents a moment in time and place that can only be captured once. Capturing photos of our niece opening her Christmas gifts this weekend can only be done once. Next Christmas she’ll be 2, and a whole different little girl, but we have the photos to go along with our memories of being with her. You can’t beat that.

Technorati tags: Flickr, Photography, GulfCoast

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