Re: Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
I want to add a couple of things to what I wrote earlier.
Someone mentioned heightened awareness while photographing, and I think this is true to an extent — though it might also be heightened focus on a narrower range of things at the expense of noticing other aspects. At times, after focusing intensely on making a photograph and finishing that, it is almost like the sound comes back on in the world after I ignored it while thinking visually. (In my experience, this is similar to what has been called the “flow” experience that we have when engaged in highly focused activities such as rock climbing, musical performance, etc.).
Also, I cannot divorce the experience of making photography from the post-processing stage. I’m just starting when I click the shutter in the field, and I don’t feel like making the exposure is remotely close to the totality of the experience. In fact, after I make that exposure, I often more or less forget about it until I come back to the file to work on it in post.
Regarding gear and the potential pleasure of using it, that doesn’t really resonate for me. Gear is simply tools, and while good tools and deep familiarity with them are critical, ideally the tool stuff more or less goes on auto-pilot and/or disappears from my thought. (This is also similar to musical performance, where operating the instrument becomes so intuitive and automatic that it gets little conscious thought, freeing the mind to focus on the music as music.)
YMMV.
Mar 05, 2026 at 10:32 AM
Previous versions of gdanmitchell's message #16998016 « Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo »
