Why do I take a picture?

Why do I take a picture? Is it for art? Is it to capture a moment? Is it because I like what you see?

I take a photo because I want to remember the feeling that I had when I was there. Some of my most memorable photos are not technically good. In fact, some are downright bad, it's not even worth showing. But they can be my most memorable photos. Examples are pictures of my son being born, it was taken at 640x480 resolution and was under exposed. It printed out to be 3"x2" which was hardly viewable. But they're very precious to me.

I took a picture of my daughter in a hotel room in low light, she was running around so much that most of my pictures came out as a blur. Technically bad, nothing sharp, nobody would say it was a good picture. But it reminds me of the fun we had being together on vacation.

I sometimes take a picture to see if I can convey the feeling that I had when I visit some place. An example would be my portfolio of winter landscape. There was this peaceful feeling I had while hiking. I tried taking a picture to see if I can convey that feeling to others. I guess it didn't translate well since I didn't really receive very good comments about them. But that's ok, when I view them though, I remember the feeling. And that's fine with me.

I feel that some of my best photos are those where I took a deep breath, looked at the view and just shoot. Not thinking much about the technical aspect of photography. Just making sure it's not over or under exposed. I try to narrow down the view to the most important and crop out the rest to remember the feeling I had.

They don't always bring "wow" to the viewer. But they do give me a sense that I capture a slice of time to remember for always.

And that's why I take a picture. What about you?