2. How I Fell for Photography (narrative)
Now I’m no professional photographer writing an autobiography about my long successful career, but I’ve had an interesting life of photography so this should turn into a riveting tale.
It all started on November 29, 2002, around 3 PM in a small hospital room at the University of Tennessee. At that moment I was thrown into the world, and while I was trying to make sense of what on earth just happened, my relationship to photography also began. My dad has always been into photography. He bought his first camera with money he raised mowing lawns in the small town he grew up in. He never went into a career in photography because he wanted to be an engineer, but he never gave up on his passion for it. So, when his second daughter was born, just like the first, he photographed her from the moment she was out of the womb. Now, unlike my older sister, I hated being in front of the camera. From age zero on, any picture you find of me shows nothing but complete and utter annoyance and a clear face of “Dad, one more picture and I will not hesitate to throw this toy at you.”
With that being said, you’d think I would avoid photography since I was always bothered by it. That’s pretty much what I did. I left the photography to my dad and my sister, who was always ready for the camera with an adorable pose. But as I grew older I began to experiment more and more. By the time I was starting to really get interested my sister had lost her interest in it as she had grown older and busier. At this point, I was in 4th or 5th grade and I couldn’t really do much, so I just took pictures of random little things on my old iPhone 5c. None of these pictures were really special and I even laugh at how much I’ve changed since then.
A few years go by and I’ve continued to experiment with photography every now and then. I was in sixth grade when I had to take this computer class with Mrs. Bottorff. Not everyone loved this class, but my friends and I always enjoyed the things we got to make. She always assigned these super creative projects like making a music video with powerpoint or designing infographics. One day we had the opportunity to make a video telling a story with this new program called Adobe Spark. If you aren’t familiar with this program, it’s like a powerpoint presentation that plays as a video with a voiceover. So, my creative little self decided to tell a story about a little girl who goes outside to take pictures. So I went out with my school-issued iPad and took pictures in the 30 degrees Tennessee snow, thinking I had taken the most beautiful pictures in the world.This simple act of walking around my tiny suburb and taking thought out pictures of street lamps and snow-covered trash cans really got me thinking about this photography stuff. I realize, now, that on that snowy winter day, I fell in love with photography.
After that day I didn’t immediately become enveloped in photography. I became more fascinated by pictures. I started taking random photo booth pictures of my friends that were so distorted it was creepy, and I took millions of pictures of my pets. Every now and then I would actually think about how to make these pictures look better. I never really thought of myself as a photographer, I was just taking random, cute pictures. Then, I moved to Kansas, which really turned my world upside down. I stopped taking pictures as often for a while, and I went through a chaotic last year of middle school. Then, I got a puppy. Her name was Kenai and she was the cutest thing I had ever seen and I wanted to share her with the world. So, I did what any other tech-savvy teen would do: I started a dog Instagram.
I borrowed my dad’s old Nikon d7100 and set off to take the best pictures I had ever taken. I took pictures of Kenai all summer. I posted pictures every day and amassed quite a lot of followers. But then, school started and I was a freshman in high school as well as a full-time athlete. I stopped posting on the account and I stopped taking pictures altogether because I was busy making new friends and studying for tests and finals. All too quickly, the next semester of school came around and I was enrolled in Basic Digital Photography with Mrs. Howe. I was so excited because I wanted to learn how to be the best photographer I could be. I learned about aperture and shutter speed and composition all these things I had no idea even existed, let alone important to photography. I started taking better pictures and really enjoying the stuff I was making.
One day we were assigned to research a photographer who inspired us and recreate their style of photography. Immediately a name popped into my head, one that I hadn’t really thought much about until then. This photographer is probably my biggest inspiration to this day. His name is Brandon Woelfel and on that day I did not realize what I had gotten myself into. I got my friend Savannah, a fellow photographer, and we worked like crazy to recreate our favorite photos Brandon had taken. It was a lot of fun to recreate his photos because they’re so different than traditional photography. That’s how we both fell in love with his style. From then on, we constantly talked about him and how we could recreate his pictures. I dreamed of being a freelance photographer like him when I grew up and having a unique style like his.
One of the things I learned about him from that project was that he takes pictures every day. So that summer, my goal was to take pictures as often as I could. Every week, Savannah and I would get together and take pictures in my neighborhood and every place I went I took pictures. I visited Chicago and took pictures of architecture. I went to the lake with my best friend and took crazy pictures on mountains. Then, I went to Hawaii and bonded over photography with my dad. We both had to stop every five minutes to take pictures of cool stuff we saw on the side of the road while my mom and sister patiently (or impatiently) waited for us to finish.
After such an eventful summer, I had fully embraced photography as my hobby. This time I didn’t want to forget about it after I started school. I ended up quitting soccer to have more time for school, which also gave me more time for photography. Now I have a whole group of friends that I go out and take pictures with. Photography has really made me appreciate life and the people around me.
Sometimes I get in a funk where I feel like I’m a little lost, but then I go on a walk and take pictures with my sister or go out with my friends and make something that makes me proud. That’s what I love about photography. It attaches you to the world around you; it wakes you up from your mindset of always going and never stopping. It makes you take a breath and look, think about what you’re looking at and how to make it stand still like that forever, how to immortalize the small things. You wouldn’t notice these little things if you never stopped. Next time you find yourself feeling like the world is moving too fast for you, or you find yourself needing a break, take a moment and find something to take a picture of. Whether it’s your cat, or your friend or even a chapstick container; stop and be in the moment with that object and appreciate the world around you.
