Photography is Light Painting

A practical thought:

Make photos that delight you, impress you, and give YOU more motivation and inspiration in your life; this means, finding more beauty in the (real) world around you!

I see photography similar to painting: you use light to paint visual images (photographs).

Paint your own happiness on your wall

And the great thing with painting:

You can paint both in color or in monochrome.

Why do painters paint?

I think painters paint because they delight in colors, tones, shapes, forms, and compositional balance (assymetry as more dynamic and interesting).

Furthermore, painters project their own soul and perspective in their paintings. Perhaps we as photographers should think of ourselves more as painters than mere documentarians or photo loggers (ploggers).

Why paint?

Paint for autotelic purposes (reasons in itself), which means:

You paint because you enjoy painting. Even if you painted something and you never showed it to anybody else, you would still derive joy from painting!

Photograph for the sake of photographing

A similar sentiment in photography:

Shoot photos for fun, even if you could never share the photos with anyone else!

Of course I still believe it is good to share your photos with others. But my simple suggestion is to photograph as if nobody else would see them!

This will allow you to stay motivated in your photography, because you have fun shooting photos (and processing them), as a painter would enjoy painting for himself, or as a musician would enjoy playing for himself.

What do you photograph for?

Personally I photograph to entertain myself, to have fun, and to find more joy, delight, and beauty in the world! To me, a life without photography would be a shittier world. I could still be “happy” without photography (as I could technically be happy without coffee), but drinking coffee makes my life 100x more enjoyable. Perhaps photography makes my life 100x more interesting and enjoyable as well.

Study more painters

To better understand the psychology of artists, I encourage you to study more painters. There are more historical examples of painters (compared with photographers), and perhaps the cross-pollination of photography and painting will result in more interesting ideas and findings.

Dare to photograph your personal happiness!

ERIC