Photographs Living Vicariously?

The last photo I took, was because I was high on LSD, and the colors was all weird, and i wanted a memento, to see what it would look like with sober eyes, it was this weird manikin and burned out house thing...I haven't looked at it since.

It's good to have old photos of childhood, but other than that I don't care.The modern world is ugly and i feel no need to record any of it, at the time i'm experiencing it.

I get why you volunteer to be the photographer, people dont' see "you" they see the camera instead, I think this sort of thing is very good for autists at a social event.

I refused to have photo's when I got married I hat them so much, now we're divorced I'm glad I have none.

I don't mind some landscape photo's I much prefer them to ones with people in.

My Dad had an old Russian bit of photography processing kit that came in a small metal case, we laughingly refered to it as his spy kit.

OAP - Older Autistic Person said:

I like to take photos that don;thave people in them

Me too, I'd rather the outside, in all its beauty. 

I'm not massively keen on having my photo taken, but I do like taking photos when I am away on holiday, or visiting somewhere significant. I like to take photos that don;thave people in them. I find photos are great for sparking my memory and allowing me to relive the event in the picture - they can be quite evocative.

I do like taking the occasional photo of my wife when we are visiting somewhere - especially candid ones that capture natural expressions as opposed to the "cheese" smile.

Our bog was windowless, so I put the enlarger on the actual toilet lid, and had a big board over the bath with my trays of chemicals in it, used the bath itself for final rinse and there was already a line for drying washing, so that held my BLACK and WHITE prints. 

I found that photography gave me "a thing to do" at weddings, parties etc. Whilst everyone one else was enjoying that part of "living in the moment".

I'm glad of digital as it means my photos take up far less space. I rarely look at them, nor does anyone else, but occasionaly I have cause to, and they bring back memories sometimes adn allow to to retrun or recoil from that moment. But mainly it stops me being bored or worse when I have to be somewhere where there are too many people or events for me to process. 

The actual images I capture are indeed mostly "wasted effort" but taking them makes me look at my surroundings and take keener observations in a way and to an extent that would make me a marked man if I didn't have a camera in my hand...

PLUS, when some twit drives into the back of me, (Or I drive into the back of some twit) I can immediately obtain visual evidence of the scene and damages etc. And that is REALLY useful.    

I'm the other person deliberately trying not to be photographed, lol, people get so wound up about me not wanting to be photographed, its like they feel they have a right to take photo's of whatever and whoever they want. I get that sometimes you will just part of a background and they're not trying to photgraph you, but often at social events people want to take photo's and put them on social media, I don't want my photograph on social media.

It dosen't help that I don't look good in photo's, I don't look like I belong and I look weird, light either falls into me or bounces off me. An ex was into photography and he had a job with all his equipment and different cameras to take a good photo fo me, the only one he did take that really looked like me was with a medium format camera in black and white. It showed every flaw and imperfection in my skin, but somehow captured the real me and was beautiful. My Dad fancied himself a photographer so we had hundreds of photos of me and my Mum standing in front of things. Theres a photo of a girl I who I think is me aged around 13 who I don't recognise, my Mum says its me, but even she sounded unsure, it was probably confusion at being asked who it was.

I can't take good photo's either they're always a bit skew whiff and come out not looking like the thing I was looking at, maybe it's because I have an astigmatism and my eyes don't see the same point in the middle without glasses. I can't seem to take a photo when wearing glasses for some reason.

Do you think people should ask permission when taking photo's especially when they intend to put them on social media with names attached?

I am not an avid photographer, but I do greatly enjoy occasionally looking at the collection of photographs I have taken over the years and reminiscing. In my case, it can result in pleasant memories I may have forgotten about to come flooding back.

When I do take photographs, I like to allow myself time to also be in the moment and see things with my own eyes, as opposed to solely looking through a camera lens.

Although I can tolerate looking at photographs of myself that were taken when I was a lot younger, I am not so keen when people want me to pose for photographs. This is mainly because I can feel self-conscious, and also because I often think I look awful when I see the results. If I happen to be at an event and am aware of people milling around taking photos, I am that person who will intentionally turn my face away from the camera(s).

When I got diagnosed recently, it became obvious that my dad would have also been autistic. His lifetime special interest was photography and he was a professional photographer - not of people but for a technology research firm. His interest did ignite it in me but not to the full special interest extent.

I do take a lot of pictures but I also don't want to do not live in the moment, like you say. So, I compromise a bit and I have a events where I have not taken a single photo.

It's more that I can't look at something forever in real time and I often want to. 

Also, a photo can be the starting point for change to a different medium, for me. 

I used to live somewhere which had very interesting scenes out of the window. I wanted to do a camera obscure but never got round to it.