Here’s an example of what inspires some people to photograph – take a look at the work of Daniel Shea.
Photograph above by Daniel Shea from the series: On coal and Appalachia
Daniel shares on his blog: “Digressions” snippets about this work regarding a series of photographs of the landscape and of the people in the coal mining regions of the southeast United States and what he’s discovering through his pictures regarding the effects of mountain top removal -a “modern” surface coal mining technique applied in certain areas the Appalachia Mountains of West Virginia.
A more “edited” selection of the photo collection can be found on his website here.
This is the kind of work that carries photography of the day forward in my view.
Nothing unique or ground breaking per se, but I have to add this fits into the questions raised by what Robert Adams writes in his essay “Making Art New”. In thinking about these questions a paragraph from that essay:
“We welcome contemporary art, then, for its power to please the eye,
to record the texture of current experience, and to invest that experience with
meaning”
I find in the photographs a sense of genuine interest in picturing a complex situation – that of humankind’s relationship with the land in the general sense, but firmly situated in the context of the specifics of place and the complexities of the moment.
Nice work.
journal.mattniebuhr.com 
Thanks so much for looking and sharing. I really appreciate it! It’s a tricky thing to be invested in the histories of your medium, somewhat “by default,” yet still have a strong interest in contemporary issues surrounding politics and photography. I by no means ever want to reduce the inherent political nature of the work to “picture making,” but at the same time my awareness, and even the act of taking pictures in this aesthetic and process-based vein is admittedly reluctant.
With that said, I love taking pictures. Thanks again.
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