From: "Gregory Fraser" > So I was wondering if there is some reason, of which I'm not totally aware, to take photos. Greg, Thanks for having raised this discussion. I'm going through a similar process of questionning after having experienced mild coronary problems this summer - a great reminder that our time on this tiny little planet is very short in comparison to the life of the universe. When you really think about it, there is not a great deal of significance to our own presence on earth (abstracting from what religion says about the issue, a matter of faith, not fact). Albert Camus has written in the most humanistic and simple terms about this feeling of being "stranger" to yourself and to the world and the fact that there are no really satisfactory answer to your question. On the other hand, Minor White wrote his Introduction to "Photography in America": "In photography, ... , each image, no matter how casual or complex, is wrested from the chaos and the bewildering compexity of all that the eye sees. Every exposure is a discovery, both in the revelation of subject and the thoughts and emotions of the photographer himself. The ultimate achievement is reached when all the elements of craft, content, and intention are so perfectly balanced that the image is an entity in spirit and form". I think that it is the search for this balance that is present in all our intents leading to the activation of the camera shutter. When we reach this "perfect balance" (very rarely, if ever) or think that we have (much more frequently) then we know that the question "Why bother?" is meaningless. Happy day, Guy
