I finally bought a new camera, it has been years that I have been working with a film camera and now I have finally arrived at the digital era. I have been very critical about photography lately, what I like, what I don’t like, good photography versus snapshot photography. The hardest thing now is what to shoot and why shoot. I need to have the same high standard and expectations for my own work realizing that just because I see an image or scene as special it is my job to show at least most of the audience I am sharing it with why I think the image or scene is so important that I needed to capture it for others to see.

I have mentioned previously that there are several reasons for shooting photography. The first and my most common reason is to capture something to paint later. I really don’t much have to worry about exposure or even composition as I just need information to support my memory of the scene. The next and second most common is the snapshot-take a photo to save a memory, again the mechanics of the photo isn’t that important as long as I capture the image and do justice to the memory which inspired the shot in the first place.

The third reason demands quality and the highest skills of the photographer, the commercial journalist idea, capture an image to tell a story usually to go with words, for every photo worthy of telling the story and being printed there are many that just are high-end snapshots-I must admit shooting a lot of these.

The final and most demanding for me is the photograph for art sake. I believe it is our job as photographers to capture the scene satisfactorily in the first place and would prefer not to count on after effects to make an okay photograph a masterpiece-I’m still a film purist after all and used to shoot low-speed slide film where if you were a stop off either way it usually meant a dark image or a burned out image. The problem I am having at the moment is that with a  lack of knowledge of the new camera I can only hope to get good snapshot images for now until I perfect all of the bells and whistles or even more important, learning to force the camera to allow me to shoot in a manual option like I used to shoot with my old Pentax K1000.

I am excited to see where my current vision will take me and if I can tell a story that will interest my viewer or capture a work of art that makes the viewer need to look again. I would love for other photographers to answer this post with their best image-tell us why it’s your best image and tell us why you think you captured something special. Explain also what particular category your photograph fits in. I look forward to your favorite images and more importantly your stories.