What makes you so special?

[Stephen Frizza]

In a world saturated in photography, both analog and digital. Whats so special about what your doing in photography?

[2F/2F]

Who wants to know?

[mooseontheloose]

Absolutely nothing. But I enjoy it and for the most part it makes me happy (except for those few times when I review my negs and wonder why I ever bothered to pick up a camera in the first place).

[bobwysiwyg]

Absolutely nothing. But I enjoy it and for the most part it makes me happy (except for those few times when I review my negs and wonder why I ever bothered to pick up a camera in the first place).

Same here.

[David Brown]

It's mine.

[jnanian]

i look for my own tripod holes ...

[Rick A]

I'm me, and there aint nobody out there like me.

[Exeter2010]

I have a special camera?

[Jeff Kubach]

I'm not special, but I don't really care. I just love photography, that's it!

Jeff

[Q.G.]

In a world saturated in photography, both analog and digital. Whats so special about what your doing in photography?

That's what i ask myself every time i even think about picking up a camera.
It's what i ask about all those millions of pictures created every day. Why would they need to be? Why would i have to look at them?
The answer all too often is that there is no reason. Just more of the tired old same.

In fact, it has become a bit of a long running project of mine to try to figure out why people feel the urge to add yet more to the already too many.
It's not just photography, but applies equally to every 'creative' field.

And the answer is not in the 'products' of creativity. It's the urge. The photographs (and music, books, etc.) have to be made, because people feel an urge to do so. After that, they would better be burned, stored away where they will never be seen, etc. The last thing to do is bother other people with them.

It would be interesting, fun too, if pictures posted in the Galleries would be accompanied, not by the uninteresting technical details (who really cares about what f-stop was used???), but by a motivation, an explanation of why the particular picture was made to begin with, why it was made to look the way it does, and why any viewer might/should care about it and not just ignore it.