Photography; What Does it Mean to You?

Question

What is your reason for taking photographs?

Is it visual satisfaction (the beauty of a leaf)?

Emotional stabilization (the photo of a long past loved one)?

Is it because they hold more intimate feelings you can't explain with words?

Or is it something more intimate in yourself? Something subconscious, even?

I was wondering this a while back, and I think I posted it in another forum of scientists a long long while ago, but..

Say, for instance, one day I spoke with one of my photography-classmates, and her reasoning as to why she took photographs was because she wanted "to remember, to never forget" the thing she photographed..

In that instance I kind of took interest in the reasons we, as humans, need to remember things. And maybe the reason that the still camera was created was solely to remember things in more detail than before (paintings).

Answer 1

Actually your right...first time i saw a playboy magazine i wanted to be a photographer

Answer 2

In teen years it was to capture a time I knew would never be repeated in later years.Now I have no interest in it,prefer the written word.And actually like the ways other generations used drawings and paintings as an art form.Even the drawings for magaizines  and  ads up until the late 1960s are far more superior and aesthetic than sterile photographs,no matter how glossy or clear they are.