Yaum's Photo Diary: Quote: Charles Durning (Actor and WW2 Veteran)

"Be original and develop your own style, but don't forget above anything and everything else...be human...think...feel. When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know your on the right track....Good luck."

The Three Joys Of Photography

The Three Joys

I have been thinking of why I love photography, it comes down to something I have labeled "The Three Joys"

1) Creativity
The first joy is simply creating the work. Everything about the making of photographs I love. The initial ideas, the writing on the blog, the preparation of equipment, the research into my subjects, figuring out what I want to communicate. The camera tech stuff like composition, lens selection, cameras, figuring exposure, taking the shot etc. The post darkroom work where you swim with your prints bringing them slowly to life, creating something powerful and beautiful. I love it all.

It is so powerful a thing, you have a idea in your mind, there is nothing else, then YOU make it, you create it, it's fricking awesome stuff.

2) The People
The second joy is that photography has allowed me a way into so many peoples lives, so many different worlds. I get to meet people of all types, speak to them, eat with them, cry and laugh with them. For a while I get to live their existence to be them if you will.

I get to be a child in a slum in Bangkok or a drug addict in a ghetto in Oakland. I get to be a ladyboy sex worker in Pattaya or a man dying of cancer in Canada. Of course I am not really those people but I get a true flavor for those worlds, those experiences, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the joy and the sadness.

With photography I get a chance to live outside of the same same everyday meat and potato lives many of my friends and family live. Because I use a camera and make pictures all the doors to a wonderful life experience are open to me, photography is a window into everything!

3) The Photograph
The third joy is about the feeling you get when you accomplish your goals, when you see your final print in the developer, fix or hanging in a gallery. There is a special emotion there, a true satisfied happiness, something so uniquely rewarding. In the darkroom sometimes when I see the finished photo for the first time as it lays in the fixer tray I will let out hoops of joy. I will scream and shout. It is quite a spectacle! It's just the sheer high of that moment bursting out, the YES moment. When the photo is right and you see it for the first time it's the best feeling in the world, better than anything I have ever felt, the high of highs!!

"Ain't Photography Grand!"

Yaum's Photo Diary

Social Documentary Photography for a Better World!

Friday, November 14, 2025

Quote: Charles Durning (Actor and WW2 Veteran)

Search This Blog

Contact Gerry Yaum

GERRY YAUM'S Photography Website "Tears of a Butterfly"

AMBROTOS KANATA STORIES BLOG

WHY I GO TO THAILAND

Gerry Yaum Interview, FRAMES PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE YouTube Channel

"Black & White" Photography Magazine, Issue #160

BLACK &WHITE Magazine, Layout Feature

CENTRE for BRITISH DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY, CBDP

St. Albert Gazette MY FATHERS LAST DAYS Story

Me, W. Eugene Smith, Sebastiao Salgado, Lewis Hine and Walker Evans! :) NOT!!!

LUNCHBOX Radio Interview FOR UNB EXHIBITIONS

MONEY EARNED TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN THE PICTURES

GOFUNDME, FAMILES/FREEWAY

UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK EXHIBITIONS VIDEO

Analog Forever Magazine

Asia Photo Review

Flash Photographic Festival 2022

Slate- THE SEX WORKERS OF THAILAND

The Focal Collective

Vernon Morning Star Newspaper Story

Aquinion Newspaper Interview.

FRAMES MAGAZINE STORY

THE FOCAL COLLECTIVE

UNB Newsletter, THE FAMLIES OF THE DUMP image.

THE GRAND PLATINUM PRINT PLAN

2022 "Families of the Dump"/The People Who Live Under The Freeway Donation Buys

"Families of the Dump" Donation Total

GERRY YAUM'S Documentary Film Making Blog

GERRY YAUM: YouTube Video PHOTOGRAPHY CHANNEL

GERRY YAUM'S VIMEO Video Page

Gerry Yaum On Facebook

THE GOAL

TRANSLATE YAUM'S PHOTO DIARY INTO YOUR LANGUAGE

Quote: Robert F. Kennedy

Quote: Nelson Mandela

Quote: Weegee (Authur Fellig)

Blog Archive

Total Pageviews

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

The Three Joys Of Photography

The Three Joys

Contact Gerry