What Photography Means to Me

     I remember when the game Life is Strange was released. It was 2013, I was eleven, the Xbox was still insanely popular, and the "choose your own story" gaming genre was getting more and more popular. At the time, Life is Strange was considered a good game, with good mechanics, and good, likeable characters. Not so much now. It was very popular. I remember Pewdiepie playing it, and because he played it, I bought it. I used to call it my favorite game.

    The game follows art college student Max Caulfield and her newly acquired time-travel powers, and the mystery of disappearing and traumatized girls in the town she grew up and goes to school in. In the first scene where we witness Max's powers, she is in her classroom where the professor is giving a lecture on Photography. Max is an art student. It was the first time I had heard of Louis Daguerre and the daguerreotypes he invented that turned into the first self-portraits. It's been a fact that was burned into my brain at eleven-years-old. I don't think people give the different types of media the credit they deserve. If I had not been introduced to Youtubers, I would have never known about this game, had I not known about this game, I probably wouldn't have the appreciation for photography I have now.

My interest in photography peaked, then just as quickly died down, but my appreciation for the art has not waivered. It is said a photograph speaks a thousand words, but I think they speak more than that. Depending on the photo and what kind it is, the meaning can differ to each mind who studies it. I personally have never been interested in abstract art of any form, but photographs of tragedies, a person's last picture or moments, and pictures with dark stories behind them have always interested me the most.

It's a simple quote, but it stuck out to me the most: "We take more pictures because we can." It's a quote from American curator Marvin Heiferman from his book Photography Changes Everything. I think it's a depressing quote. To me, the easy ability to whip out your phones and take a quick selfie with friends, or a strange pic of your untouched meal means that no one truly appreciates photography for what it truly is: art. You could say it's the same with drawing and painting. Before photographs, there were artists people would hire to do a portrait of a monarch, or a family portrait. It was a luxury. Once the photograph was invented, normally the only photograph a family would take either together or of another relative was after a family member had died and they took a picture with the corpse of their relative(s). Now taking pictures of the dead is reserved for studies and medical reasons. It, in my opinion, has become too easy to take photos, and because of that photographs have a lot less meaning to me. Pictures with family, friends and pets are important and meaningful to me, but taking pictures of your food, and random objects around us have no meaning to me. Photographs have stories behind them that we hold close to us. They help us remember what deceased loved-ones look like, and are taken in happier times that we want to remember. 

To me, photography is documentation of happy times, and treasured people and animals.