Why Photography Is Right For Me

Why photography? Why now?  Is this just another hobby that will fade over time? What keeps me wanting to pursue this as more than a hobby?  What drives me to be better at taking pictures?

These, and many, many more, are questions that are racing through my head constantly, and have been for the past two years.  I picked up my first DSLR around two and a half years ago, a basic little Canon Digital Rebel XTi with the 18-55mm kit lens, because I’ve always had an interest in photography and wanted to try and pick it up as a hobby.  Things just haven’t been the same since then.

Something about photography is constantly burning inside of me – the desire to improve, the desire to take the next step. And I couldn’t explain what that was, what about photography kept sucking me in deeper, until a couple of days ago.

I’ve been reading David duChemin‘s book “Within The Frame” for a little while now (I’m a slow reader, so it takes time for me to read, especially a book as good as this one) and once I read a few paragraphs of Chapter 3, titled The Artist and the Geek, it hit me.  Here’s a quote from the book that really hit it home for me:

It’s as though photographers are afflicted with a chronic split personality.  One personality is the Artist, the other the Geek.  One is Vision, the other Craft, or Technique, and in the middle where they meet is the art of photography – the expression of our unique vision through practiced technique.  Great photography happens where craft and vision meet.

Now, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless you know me personally, so let me give you a little back story.

I’ve always been a geek.  For as long as I or my parents can remember I was the little geek/nerd/whatever you want to call it.  From sticking screw drivers into every hole I could find just because I could, to taking apart an old radio and filling it up with water when it’s plugged in just to see what would happen, to taking the most random gadgets to school and finding interesting ways to use them earning me the nickname “Gadget Boy,” to writing code just for fun, I have always been a geek.  Good at math and science.  Hell, I got a degree in Computer Information Systems and I’m currently a software developer – nothing says geek more than that does.

But, it wasn’t enough.  There has always been something else, something more, deep inside me that wanted to be let out.  Creativity.  My “left-brain” was satisfied but my “right-brain” was laying dormant, waiting to be unleashed.

It’s not like I never had an outlet for my creativity.  I was in band in high school and college – I played five different instruments throughout that time.  I also learned some guitar along the way.  I used to draw.  I made my own music videos and experimented with video editing in general for a while.  I’m a doodler.  Look at any of my notebooks at work and you’ll find all kinds of random doodles and drawings.  Part of my job as a software engineer has me creating lots of web pages which allows a small outlet for my creativity as well.

But they were always separate.  Geek and artist. Thinking and creating.  Left brain and right brain.  Until I found photography.

Photography lets me blend what I’m good at – being a geek – with that fire burning inside – being creative.  There are many technical aspects of photography to master: f-stops, shutter speeds, apertures, ISO, lighting, the inverse square law, mega-pixels, formats, etc.  I could go on and on about the technical aspects of photography.  It’s this side of photography that appeals to the geek in me.  I love reading about new lenses, new camera technologies, flashes, lighting techniques, you name it.  But this is only half the battle.  The geeky, technical stuff is just the means to an end, with the end being creativity.

Armed with this technical knowledge I can then go out and create.  Create images that appeal things deep inside myself, images that appeal to other people, and even images that no one really likes but if they were never created then I wouldn’t have learned anything.  I can use the techniques I’ve learned to create the image I see in my head.  Photography is not only about having an idea, its about being able to visualize that idea and execute it.

It’s this combination of technical and creative that keeps bringing me back, keeps driving me to learn more, shoot more – to take my photography to the next level.  It’s the perfect blend of geek and artist – both of which run strong through my veins.

I recently read an interview with Daron Shade over at Lighting Essentials that had another quote it in that reinforces everything I’ve been thinking and writing about – this balance between artist and geek:

I love the mix of art and science, measurement and judgment, artist and technician.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  In fact, that’s pretty much what I’ve been trying to say this entire post.  I love both aspects of it – the art and the science – and seamlessly blending those two together to create something that is more than just 1′s and 0′s, more than just photons blasting through the air, more than just a person standing in the rain.  Creating photographs that mean something to me, to you, to whoever finds meaning in them, or even those who just think it’s a nice picture. That’s why photography is right for me.

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As an aside to this post, I wanted to say that this is going to be the basis for my personal marketing and branding, Geek + Artist, so I plan on making some changes to my main website accordingly.  One of the big things I want to do is get a self-portrait made that really encapsulates both ideas in one picture.  Geek + Artist at the same time.  I have a few ideas, but I’m open to everyone else’s as well.

Please let me know what you think!