The Bloom

Mariah Hicks
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

I am blooming, continuously growing, and that in a nutshell is the essence of my being. My petals never remain the same. They wilt with every season, and bloom again as they should. If anybody asks how I would describe myself, my journey, it will always be in the sense of myself as a flower in this garden of life, just finding the soils that are meant for me to flourish in.

Being honest, I am highly intimidated by the photography world. I love the opportunity to create nice quality images when I can, but the craft itself isn’t one that I would necessarily say I have mastered. I get a lot of creative ideas, but most times, I get shy behind the camera. You can tell by how far away I appear when shooting a lot of work. I wouldn’t consider myself to be very social in most scenarios, and that in turn handicaps my photography abilities.

As an aspiring photographer, I hope to break away from that barrier of fear. I want to see the world and everything within it as limitless. In order to create the work that I love, I have to learn how to be comfortable in the places where I am often uncomfortable. I want to be able to use my skill of photography to travel the world (in the States and overseas) and document other people’s stories and ways of living. It thrills me to be able to capture candid moments of other people’s everyday lives, but to do so I have to break away from the hindering barriers.

The first thing that got me interested in photography was the fact that I used to model. I loved being in front of the camera and always had amazing ideas, but when it came down to it, I wasn’t able to communicate them in a way that most of the photographers I worked with could understand. I wanted to bring my visions to life. I figured that nobody could understand my ideas better than I could, so I started with self-portraits and that eventually led to my interest in portrait photography so I started doing people’s photos for fun. My desire to create raw, candid images instantly grew. I’d take my camera to family events and capture moments there. The idea of creating pure moments of everyday life influenced me to explore life behind the camera.

A lot of the people who I look to as a source of inspiration in the photography world are photographers that I follow on instagram. I love Aris Jerome’s, Deun Ivory’s, and Vande Aarde’s portrait work and any creative work inspires me deeply. Gabriel Rivera is a photographer that I follow on Twitter and his work inspires me as well. All in all, I love seeing the world through other people’s eyes and I want to work on my craft so I can show people it looks from my eyes.

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