The Meaning of Photography: Why Take Photos?

Why do we take photographs? The question is older than the cameras in our pockets, and it remains open.

For some, it is a way to keep a memory from dissolving. For others, it is a language: light, framing and colour can say something that words might miss. Photography also documents — events, landscapes, the ordinary — and, perhaps most powerfully, it connects. An image can travel farther than the person who made it.

In the end, photography is a way of discovering, exploring and sharing something of our own humanity. So: why do you take photographs?