Why I Do Photography

First there was darkness. And then there was light.

Things you cannot see, really are things, which have a loads to do with how you are perceiving everything in life: what are you expecting to loom behind the next corner, what is the ultimate goal you hope to achieve in your life, and what are the things you fear the most.

Photography is about directing spotlights on all of these.

That means as a photographer you are the torch bearer. The one who brings the light on things being apparent only in a combination of light & darkness that exists only in that very spot in that very moment of the current, prevailing circumstances. As you'll notice this is the bypassing sum of the variables, you want to deep freeze for good, you'll press the shutter release button and hope that you won't be the only one to get pleasure out of the what has been captured.

Not that it's all about pleasure (which I believe is not essence of life in the first place) - photos do have capacity to change worlds. Now just think about the Tank Man or the Afghan Girl.

These photos carry the ability to STRIKE, PIERCE THROUGH and CAPTIVATE. They are holding the potential to alter a way hosts of people go about on this planet. Which they have done.

This is what I call a pair of iron legs.

What started, when I held camera in my hands in preteens, taking the first photo, still persist - the passion for seizing the moment.

And if it's up to me, I'll keep that desire.

Till the very end.

Jari Aho