Book Review

Why People Photograph is written by Robert Adams who is famous for his black and white photographs of the American West. In his years of work he has revealed the impact human activity has had on the natural wilderness and vanishing open spaces.

The title of his book is slightly misleading despite giving some interesting reason for taking photographs, the main part of the book contains essays about a few famous photographers. He presents some very interesting observations about these artists.

One particularly interesting observation about Paul Strand he makes, is when Strand moved to live in France for a period, Strand's photography suffered, Adam's believes because he was not attune to the way of the French or able to understand their language fully. This struck a note for me because often I will be faced with a scene that I do not fully understand because of culture differences or lack understanding a country's language. This happens both in Thailand where I have lived for many years and other Asian countries I maybe visiting.

The latter part of the book concentrates on topic of conservation, and clearly Adams is a conservationist and through his work must have seen changes for the worse on a massive scale. He sounds quite bitter at times about the loss of open space and the destructive influence man has had on the landscape both as eyesores and noise pollution.

Most importantly, for me this book did make me wonder why I am so keen to take photographs. I'm sure the answer is not as simple as I summarize here, but it's certainly a big part of why I photograph; I believe the main reasons I photograph is one, for the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction of seeing a finished image that looks as good as or better than the scene I have photographed. And the second reason in order of importance, is the great feeling I have as I hold the camera in front of my eye and trigger the shutter.

Why these two reasons give me such satisfaction is beyond me, but taking photographs feels like being another need like food, sex or sleep.