Photographs why do people want them?

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days, so thank you for the question.

I've also been enjoying reading responses.

I think there are different areas of photography with different reasons for taking the images.

We'd be lost for example without stock photos on books, in newspapers, magazines, goods to purchase etc.

Also, they are used everywhere in advertising.

Nature photography can be quite amazing and can capture details the naked eye might not see.

As these animals, insects etc become extinct, at least we will be able to see what once was.

Then these images are shared with the world so we see so much more than we once did.

With media photography, where would we be without the testament of photos eg. Tiananmen Square in 1989 - student and tanks.

Art photography can simply be appreciated for just that - an art form of much beauty.

Personal photos are a record of our history.

I used to work in a psychiatric hospital and on the walls were photos of the people who were resident there in the Victorian era - working on the farm etc.

I could have stared at those photos for a lot longer than I had time to - they transported me back to a long lost time and told me something of their story.

I'm old enough to remember the days before colour photographs in newspapers and phot's we smaller and less invasive, they relied on good descriptive writing and I think this is something thats becoming lost. Although I do agree that some media photo's are iconic.

Some art photo's I've seen are good and I have less of a problem with those although I still prefer paintings. There are some animal and nature photo's I like.

I relate less to historical photographs, maybe because the periods of history I'm interested in the most are ones from long before photography.

I find photographs in advertising difficult, but I think that less about the fact that somethings been photographed and more about the way it's been photographed, often there's just a thing, on it's own with no context, no way of guessing its real size or shape or colour. I think partly its bad websire design and partly poor photography and resolution in printing or putting it on screen. I used to prefer the old fashioned catalogues where you'd have mock up rooms so you could actually get some idea of how big something is and how it fitted with other things, these days you'd hard know if a chair or a bed was for a dolls house or a massive mansion.

I really dislike personal photographs, I've sat through to many evenings of someone elses holiday or wedding photo's to ever want to see any again. I dislike photo's so much I refused to have any taken of my wedding. I feel like unless somethings been photographed and put on public display on websites and social media any experience is invalidated and open to question. I do have an issue with not being believed and being asked for a photograph of something I've done or seen opens up old wounds. I'm also old enough to have not grown up in a digital world and photos had to be taken to a shop or sent off and you'd have to wait a week to get them back and you'd have to wait until you'd finished a roll of film. So this idea of instant sharing of images still feels quite strange to me, it honestly never occurs to me to want a camera, or to take photographs, like I say they very often really freak me out to the point of near panic.

Thank you for that reminder of the past. All my early photos were black and white. Then when colour came in I believe the films were more expensive. My first camera was an old family one like a box. You looked in the top to see the view you were taking in front. I think my first picture was of two sheep in a field and the field was a bit wonky. 

I also remember the disappointment when we went for a trip to London with my new instamatic camera and took pictures of the giant panda, but as I walked away I knocked the camera and the door opened. I closed it quickly, but the exposure meant when I got them developed there were no pictures of the giant panda.

I remember the days of getting to the end of a film and you couldn't remember what else was on there because they were taken the previous year. I also thought carefully about how many pictures I took because it was expensive to have them developed. It did feel exciting however when you went back the following week and picked up a packet of photos to see what was there.

Thank you Homebird.

Very interesting. 

Thank you Homebird.

Very interesting.