It's All About Me:

After reading a discussion on DPC about photography as "art", I wanted to come and write down what photography means to me. I've been thinking lately about why I'm doing this, what is propelling me to create these images. It's basically part of the never-ending quest to define my life and decide what the hell it all means, if anything. I've come to this conclusion-

Photography, for me, is about capturing that which cannot be held, and that is time. By taking a photograph, I have frozen time in it's tracks. It is now history. For example, the picture of my cat in the leaves: in the next instant, the cat is a little older and fatter, the leaves closer to withering, and I, as the artist, or historian, if you will, have grown more mature for the experience. In the next second, everything changes. But I have that piece of time on (digital) film, captured for all eternity. It cannot exist in the same way ever again.

Part of man's quest for immortality? Perhaps.

Which brings me to the "art", or the Photoshop dilemma. By altering these pictures, erasing the blemishes and shifting the colors, am I therefore changing history? Have I created something that never really existed, falsifying the record? Or am I putting my own vision on the world, and therefore becoming an "artist"?

Deep thoughts. Gotta go to work