Why people photograph?

I have been researching in to the topic of 'why people photograph'. I have found a book of essays by Robert Adams called 'Why People Photograph'. I have bought this and plan to read through this when it comes to gain more inspiration and contextuality to my work.

I also found several comments which i found inspiring from different photographers as to why they take photographs.

A photography blogger called Amanda Gilligan quotes...

http://digital-photography-school.com/why-we-photograph

I got the book 'Image makers, Image takers' out of the library as i knew there were a lot of photographer interviews in it that may help me understand why photographers take photographs. I was correct. I have learnt a lot from this book and it inspired me to choose the question 'Why do you take photographs?'.

Here are my findings...

Ricarda Rogen

'I want my pictures to ask questions. I want people to look at my pictures and have an emotional response'

Thomas Demand

'All i can show you are the things necessary to demonstrate the thought that led me to this picture. I can't show you the actual thought. Otherwise i'd write a pamphlet and put it on the wall'.

'Working with existing pictures, like I do, you constantly think about the flood of images we are subjected to and you want to figure out how you can make sense of it'

William Eggleston 

'I never know beforehand. Until i see it. It just happens all at once. I take a picture very quickly and instantly forget about it. Not for good but for the time being.'

'Probably the fact that i want to, and know that i can, take pictures no one else has taken before.'

'When someone asked him why he took pictures, Gary Winogrand said, 'Because i want to see what something looks like when its photographed' I've never been able to top that quote, i feel the same way'

Boris Mikhailov

'I intuitively felt that photography was the field where i could express myself as a citizen and a human being'

'It was important for me to take pictures about what the Soviet Union was about. I needed to concentrate on what was real, what our life was about and to create an identity through that.'

Stephen Shore

'At this point i'm interested in having fun. I don't feel like i have to do something that looks like a Stephen Shore picture. I'm doing what i've always done, which is taking pictures that interest me'

'I'd call it 'conscious attention'. It's a condition of seeing the world in a heightened state of awareness'

'There is something deep in me that relates to expressing myself or communicating this way'

Mary Ellen Mark

'I prefer not to think ahead about what i'm going to say with my photographs. I would rather be surprised and see what my subjects bring to the photograph.'

'I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient'

Martin Parr

'You know intuitively when you've got the right angle, or the right thing happening. But you can't entirely predict that because photography has this unpredictable element to it, which is what's so interesting about it'

'In a sense my main manifesto is documenting the newfound wealth of the West, because to me, it's the biggest subject, bigger than or just as big as war and famine'

'I'm a photographer, I know the pictures i want to take, but i can't tell you how or when i achieve it'

Sebastiao Salgardo

'I photograph elements of my life, places where i feel comfortable, where my way of thinking is in line with what i am doing'

David LaChapelle

'I had always fantasised about taking pictures, but i always thought it would be really technical and mathematical (...) for me photography was like cooking, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.'

'I try to get the visual part of my brain turned on. It's like a muscle that you need to start working. Once i do that the ideas just start coming.'

'The key is to photograph your obsessions, whether that's old people's hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that's what you've got, and then think about what you want to see'

'I've come to realise that for me, it's the act of taking the picture that i love.'

David Sims

'I've got to try and make sure my vision equals or betters the previous campaigners.'

'I think its important to crate a legacy for yourself. you can get distracted from that. I use my photography to try and express something which feels more fundamental' 

'At first my aim was to be iconoclastic, then to be ironic and oblique. And after that i came back wanting to produce a picture that was as commercial as possible. But i still wanted to be irksome.'

'I've had moments where i've felt like i was on another planet because i saw something beautiful. To me, taking pictures in being alive'

Tina Barney

'I also began reading a lot about visual perception. That was the thing that made my heart beat most; the problems with space and scale, and what engages the viewer.'

"Theatre of Manners is based on nostalgia, on love, on appreciation. And The Europeans Book is as well'

'I want to make your brain work just enough so that you understand and just enough so that you don't understand.'

Anton Corbijn

'The camera really helped me to get rid of my shyness'

'I see photography as an adventure. I like to discover where my boundaries are and what i can do with each person i meet'

Rineke Dijkstra

'I think photography really lets you examine how a person is changing'

'I want to show you things you may not see in normal life. I make normal things appear special. I want people to look at life in a new and different way but it always has to be based on reality.

'I get excited about authenticity. I try to find people that have something special. I don't even know what  it is. /its intuition'

'I love being totally in the moment, when everything comes together and is just right'

Rankin

'I try to come up with a new and unique approach for each of my subjects'

'I  think if you don't love people and aren't fascinated by them, you'll never succeed as a portrait photographer, because your pictures will be cold.'

Fabrice Dall'Anese

'I hope to touch people. I'd like to create a body of work that reflects a vision, that tells a story in a certain language.'