The above picture inspires me and expresses better than my words can why I love photography.
First, it illuminates a real scene in a way that 99.9% of the population would never be able to experience without this photo.
Second, you can form a photograph in a way that hides some of the “nastier” or more unseemly elements of reality and thereby magnify it’s beauty. It’s a little like looking at others as they can be, not as they sometimes actually are.
Simply, I love photography because of it’s power to inspire and comfort the mind. And someday, I hope to create an image or two that can do that.