Sense-ible Learning - Why we shoot

The last few weeks I haven't been putting up many posts, as there has been a lot going on. over on Google+ I've made a few for the weekly themes, I've also been busy on a personal photography project outside of Sixth Sense Photo.Over these past few weeks I've done multiple edits, shot a lot of different types of photography, and altered my editing style. It is a mess of randomness haha. But it got me thinking as to why I shoot, what I enjoy about shooting the things I do. So today I'm going to go through some of these photos and why I made them, and posted them. Hopefully you'll get a sense of what makes you shoo too

This shot was taken for the local camera club in my area. The Newmarket Camera Club has had an amazing group of people running and participating in the club the last few years. There is a run of young new shooters, young experienced, to old new and old pros, all mixed together in an environment built around learning, helping, and encouraging each other. 

Every month there is a challenge theme where we try to make a photo around that concept. This month was Hard Promises. I went with the hardest promise a parent can ever break, protecting their children. This one wasn't just shot for the camera club though, it's something I find terrifying myself and the camera club was just an excuse to shoot it. Putting myself into my work, my accomplishments and fears are two big reasons I shoot. It's personal, and helps me come to terms with these.

This photo was an interesting experiment for me. I was out shooting with Isabel and Stephanie when we happened across a store front that had this shiny colourful material along the bottom of the display window. It was hard to shoot, going through the glass, and a highly colourful pattern. I didn't like what I was getting, so I went out of the box, and rotated my camera in the middle of the exposure. This is one of the few times I've gone for a completely artistic look to a photo, blurring the lines to the point it's not recognizable. I've never been truly great at the abstract way of thinking as I've been grounded in computers for so long. I must say I like the results and plan on exploring this end of myself more as time goes on. 

This was taken at the Toronto Science Centre. It was a really interesting place, and this was one of the more unique events I saw. Basically there was a fog and as kids walked around it in one direction it would spiral up to a vent about 20' up. It created a mini funnel inside. It was really interesting to see how a slow walk could create a fairly fast moving "mini tornado". I took this for the exact opposite reason of the above photo; this satisfied my curiosity of the technical things in life, and allowed me to make a little artistic play on it. I like the contrast of art and technology/science. It's amazing how well they can compliment each other as they are normally opposites.

This was a happy mistake on my end. Well sort of mistake. I just decided to try an "artistic self portrait" with little to no effort. Again, taken at the Science Centre, I had saw this mirrored tunnel and just thought it might make something interesting, but no matter where I aimed my camera I saw it, and me. So I blindly aimed it up, looked at it in the mirror and snapped the shutter. This is one of the big reasons I love photography though. It pushes me outside of my comfort zone and gets me exploring new things. 

Another one of my artistic bending's from my night out with Isabel and Stephanie, this was a series of tables that are lit up for people to use in Newmarket, Ontario. I zoomed in part way through to get the motion effect. This one I wanted to try to create a sense of motion. Trying to create a sense or reaction in people is one of the more interesting reasons I find to shoot. This was a little abstract, but had a bit of a purpose. Movement, speed, from something sitting still. Like the first photo, I wanted to create a feeling, but this one was much more abstract. 

So those are some reasons I shoot what I do. A fear, a theme, exploring the inner parts of my brain that I normally don't use, satisfying my own curiosity of nature and science, and to impart a feeling, even in an abstract way, on people. As you can see, it has been an interesting few months, bring some randomness and smiles. 

Thanks for reading and I hope we all got a sense as to why we all shoot