Starting out as a photographer can be a long road. In the beginning, you have a sense that it’s all about the shots and the angles. But later you discover, as you grow in experience, that it’s also about your aspiration and dreams – the stuff of life itself.
Here are some of the ways that photography helps to transform your life and the lives of others.
You Experience All Four Seasons In All Their Colours
For many people seasons, come and go without much feeling that they’re connected to the real world. The sun might be shining, or it could be snowing, but many are cooped up in air-conditioned office blocks, viewing the changing natural world around them from afar.
Photography can change all that. It’s your opportunity to leave the world of cities and streets behind and venture out to discover the true beauty that the seasons can bring. Photographing nature as it goes through its annual cycle gives you the opportunity to reimagine the same scene in numerous different ways, from the changing colours of the leaves to the way the evening sun hits the lakes and mountainsides.
You Can Tell A Story
One of the reasons people go on photography courses for beginners is that they want to develop the skills which will allow them to tell stories. Writing down what you’ve done in a journal is never going to be as effective as shooting real images and posting them on your blog. Although you might be able to convey a sentiment in a couple of sentences, nothing quite allows you to recreate your life as well as a few well-timed snaps.
You Can Make Others Feel Good
There’s a reason social media platforms, like Instagram and Pinterest, are so popular: they make people feel good. We’re visual creatures, and we respond most strongly to visual inputs – more than just writing a post.
What’s great about photos is that you can show to people what they have to be happy about in their lives, be it their pets, their loved ones, or even their possessions. Taking a picture of someone allows them to see the good in their life.
You Can Help Those In Need
One of the great things about photographs is their power to get attention. As a photographer, you can take pictures that can literally change people’s fortunes and turn their lives around.
Take charities, non-profits and “high impact” organisations. To do their work, these organisations rely on getting money from other people. But, of course, there’s only so much charitable money to go around. And so how do they compete? By enlisting great photographers, of course.
Photography has a way of connecting with people that no other mode of communication does. People react to the suffering depicted in images for more viscerally than they do the suffering described in text and are, therefore, much more likely to open their wallets and make a donation.
Photography isn’t just something that you learn. It’s a way of life, and it can have a significant impact on the people around you.
