The last major research study on selfies, completed in 2016, reports that the average person will take 25,676 selfies in their lifetime. The general public has been conditioned to interpret this as a negative statistic. People these days are narcissistic – they only care about themselves. We use our phones too much and are addicted to social media. Brain rot is epidemic. 

But what if these 25,676 selfies could actually teach us something about who we are as humans? Few people stop to ask why we’re fascinated with selfies or the human face in general. The assumption that we’re self-absorbed is taken for granted, but that’s not necessarily true. Perhaps we all share a piece of that artistic and spiritual drive that drove Davinci to paint the Mona Lisa or Van Goh to create his famous self-portrait. It could be the case that we find joy in seeing our faces reflected on a screen because faces are beautiful and good.

The need to record the human face and form is powerful. We’ve done it for centuries. People are fascinating and we can’t stop photographing them even when this compulsion leads to some unhealthy behaviors. 

There was once a small photography exhibition called A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload. According to the ICP, the exhibit took “a long look at our worries and compulsive fascination with the proliferation of photographic images. But if the modern individual has been traumatized by an inundation of photography, it’s a trauma we return to because we know there’s something in us that can save us and transport us away from the same anxiety it causes.” 

Modern psychology understands that healing trauma requires curiosity. In many cases, trauma victims will return to behaviors that remind them of said trauma in order to process. In this case, the world is overrun with images. Our brains and emotions can’t process all of this information. And yet, images placed in the right context can renew our hearts and spirits. At Artisan Obscura, we believe that photography can be a positive force in the world, and instead of pointing out all the negatives associated with the modern image, we’re on a mission to experience the best photography has to offer. Its power to connect people with others and ourselves is one of those positive offerings. 

That’s why this blog post is going to talk about people – people in terms of the broader human experience. Not a specific person or a small group of people, but people with a capital P. Sit down with a well-crafted portrait or a spontaneous photo on a city street, and you’ll begin to feel your way into connection with the subjects and participate in what it means to be part of our storied, complex, beautiful human race.

Of course, it’s not enough to throw out some vague, feelgood notions about humanity and move on. At Artisan Obscura, we want to equip artists to make a difference in their world. Practically, we do that through our camera accessories. But when it comes to blogs, we want to unique spark ideas that change the way you approach your craft. 

Photography Restores Wholeness to Personal Interactions

One of the most striking examples of “people photography” is the Humans of New York photography project. It’s hard to make your way through a book without cracking a smile or shedding a tear. What I find most interesting about Humans of New York is that it’s set in one of the most people-averse cities in the world. You don’t chat with folks in New York City; the odds are high that everyone is a stranger. And so, what makes this collection so disarming is the way it makes you rethink your interactions with neighbors, checkout clerks, baristas, and people in your spin class. 

Humans of New York lets us live in the New York City we wished existed, a place like Sesame Street where neighbors stop by and say hi. By giving the reader a glimpse of a unique person’s life, the project motivates us to pay it forward in our own lives and leave ourselves open to the spontaneity of human connection.

Photographers will also admit that the art of photography deepens their connections with others. In a feature in The New Yorker, Judith Joy Ross, a professional portrait photographer,  was asked what she hoped to achieve with her photographs of people, she said simply, “To know something about somebody.” Modern life can be quite isolating. Wouldn’t it be nice to know something about somebody, and have somebody know something about you, too?

Another beautiful quote comes from the famous photographer Annie Liebovitz, “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.”

Photography Helps Us Make Meaning of Our Communities

When I was a kid, I loved looking through family photo albums. My mom was crafty, which meant that her scrap books told stories through frames and stickers and colorful borders. I saw pictures of birthday parties and family reunions. When I saw someone I didn’t recognize, I would ask who they were. In most cases it was a distant relative or old family friend. Even pictures that had been taken of me just four years earlier seemed like they came from another lifetime. But I was piecing together who I was and where I came from.

This innate desire to preserve and experience your roots can be found all over the world in billions of people.

The New York Times recently interviewed Shahid Zaidi, a man whose father was a photographer in Pakistan during its founding. Zaidi “wants to preserve that history. He has assembled a small team to create digital versions of the images his father began capturing at his studio in Lahore 91 years ago. He aims to put the complete collection online so that families can find their ancestors and explore Pakistan’s coming-of-age.”

The British Journal of Photography captures this sense of meaning-making in community in an article titled “Humour, Intimacy, and Sincerity: Celebrating Family Photography”:

Images of home and family have always been a compelling theme in documentary photography, from Sally Mann’s poetic black-and-white images of her children to Richard Billingham’s pathos-filled portrait of his parents from the series Ray’s a Laugh. There is the seductive sense of a lid being lifted, or a magnifying glass held over a subject as relatable as it is specific; photographs of families, like families themselves, can take so many different forms and provoke so many different emotions.

Where did we come from? It’s an age-old question that everyone has asked at one point in their life. Photography helps us answer that question, whether you’ve just stumbled upon a photo from 150 years ago or took a family photo spanning four generations.

Photography Inspires Us to Reach Beyond the Lives We’ve Settled For

There’s something about excellent photography that immediately reminds us that the human experience is broader than our daily routines. Even the things that excite us eventually lose their luster if we don’t take time to approach life from a fresh and new perspective. Photography of people almost magically reminds us that life is more than what we’ve settled for. A moment of pure frolic or a face presented in a lovely, soft depth of field. We stop and look, and the longer we look, the more the heart swells.

At times, this realization is a bit sublime – the depth of human experience is something we can never fully grasp at any one time. We cannot feel the depths and heights of emotion at once. But we can allow the emotions to come to us present themselves.   

It’s like taking a great photo. Sometimes we stumble into beauty by accident and sometimes we must be patient. While we can do what we can to adjust lighting and choose our lenses, it’s impossible to have full control of what goes on beyond the viewfinder. But that’s part of the joy of photography – we must pay attention and seek out beauty and meaning. In other words, great photographers approach life with the belief that beauty is hidden everywhere.

Sometimes it feels like photography doesn’t do enough to solve the world’s problems. It doesn’t grow food or create life-saving medicine. But think back to a time when photography changed your life, when you caught your breath and felt your body hang slack for one brief moment. At one time, you realized how fascinating people can be, and you decided to commit to the craft of photography.

If the direction of your life could be changed by one, simple photo, then perhaps your work could have the same effect on someone else. 

Why do we love photography? Because it helps us understand who we are as people.

Want to hear more from this series, “What We Love About Photography?” Sign up for our newsletter and loyalty program.

Plus, you’ll get $5 off your first purchase at Artisan Obscura!