Tom Cottrell

This is the 3rd post of 5 in a series on photography.

  1. Why I Started To Take Photos
  2. Why I Continue To Take Photos
  3. Why I Think You Should Take Photos
  4. Some Practical Tips
  5. Photography Announcement

Setting my own personal reasons for embracing photography to one side, I would now like to explain why it is that I think you should be carrying your camera with you wherever you go.

Now this is possibly where a small, light, compact camera really comes into its own! I keep my camera ( a Fujifilm Finepix z100fd) in my bag or in my pocket ready to pull out and start taking pictures of whatever has caught my eye. As I explained in the first post of this series, I only started to do this back in August of last year, and in that time I have noticed a number of significant and extremely positive changes in my life. It really is such a simple adjustment to make, but just look at the benefits!

  • Increases Creativity – Taking photos and editing them is an act of creativity. Julia Cameron, in her book, The Artist’s Way, suggests that one way to jump start personal creativity is to begin treating yourself to ‘artist dates’, which she describes as, ‘a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist’. Carrying your camera with you and taking photos of whatever catches your eye, automatically turns any outing into an artist’s date. You give yourself permission to be creative: to be a person who creates.
  • Heightens Awareness – A curious thing happens when you’re on the lookout for photographic opportunities – you start to find them wherever you look! That patch of scrub-land next to the bus stop? You know, the one you don’t normally look twice at? Well, when you have your camera at the ready you begin to realise that it is not an unremarkable tangle of weeds and dead grasses. It is, in fact, a cornucopia of interestingness.
  • Develops Curiosity – Following on the tail of ‘heightening awareness’, an interest in photography can lead you to ask a lot of questions. What’s at the end of that path over there? What does this look like up close? Where will I end up if I choose to turn left instead of right? Curiosity is one of those qualities that we are born with and we steadily lose if we’re not careful to cultivate it. Let photography reawaken your questioning self.
  • Opens Connection – What I am doing when I take a photograph and share it, either on the blog, on Twitpic, on Flickr, or personally with family and friends, is I’m offering up a point of connection. By engaging with my photographs you’re seeing the world the way I see it, you’re participating in my vision. When you post a photograph you’re providing a window on your world.
  • Appreciates Specialness – It doesn’t matter how many swans I take a photograph of, every single one of them is special. It doesn’t matter how many flowers I photograph, every one is unique. Since I started taking photos, my appreciation for the individuality, for the specialness, of everything I encounter has been enhanced tenfold. It is my belief that it is only by appreciating the special in others, that we can connect to, and celebrate, our own specialness, our own lives less ordinary.

If you already carry your camera with you wherever you go, do you agree with these benefits? Have you discovered other benefits?

If you don’t carry your camera with you, but you intend to, what benefits do you hope to find? Has this post convinced you to give it a go?