On Photography
Its been suggested (more than once) that I have become a little obsessed with taking pictures. I fully admit it. It is a rare family occassion when I don't have my camera and now even my 8 year old neice has begun trying to negotiate a limit to the number of pictures I can take of her during a play date. All this got me thinking about what these pictures mean to me and why I am so pre-occupied with them. This is what I came up with....

Family Historian
It all began with a desire to have some pictures of my friends and family members. Originally my grandmother was the one who recorded everything... first through photography and then with her video camera. When she passed away, the family realized two things: a) there were very few pictures of Nanny because she was usually BEHIND the camera and b) without her, no one was recording ANYTHING. I originally bought my camera to fill that void. It was my goal to get at least one good picture of each of my friends and family members to hang on the wall of my apartment and to record basic family events like birthdays and holidays and other special occassions.

Photography Therapy
The next stage of my photographic career began during a fairly bad bout of depression. I had gotten laid off from my job and was having a harder time than I had anticipated finding a new one. Money was tight and stress was high. I kept getting more and more depressed and feeling isolated and down on myself. In order to combat the unhealthy thoughts in my head, I turned to my pictures.

Whenever I would start thinking that "no one loved me, no one cared" I would flip through my photos and remind myself that this person loved me and so did this one and this one until I started feeling better.

When I would think that my life just sucked, out came the pictures and I would show myself photos of one good moment after another until things didn't seem so bad.

And when I began thinking that I couldn't do anything right, I would pull out the photos again. I would look at the photos of craft projects I had completed or of events that I organized and force myself to recognize good things that I had accomplished. And whenever I found a particularly good photo that I had taken, I let myself feel proud of it and it helped combat my negativity.

Maybe its silly but its really been a big help in keeping me feeling positive and mentally healthy.

Photography as Art
The latest stage has been to realize that I may have some small aptitude with a camera and to realize that I may want to take more photos than just birthday parties and holidays. I find myself taking shots of things that catch my eye or trying to find some good lighting or a good angle to make the picture better. I search Flickr looking at other people's shots trying to pick up tips and inspiration and have begun scouting out places to go just to get good photographs. I have even started getting together with people for the purpose of take photos rather than simply taking pictures whenever we happened to get together. I really want to get a serious camera and take come classes and see where this takes me.

So next time I ask you to hold still and smile for one more shot, maybe you will understand where I am coming from and resist the urge to strangle me with the cord from my camera case.