wp2: photographic intellectual archive
my lifelong relationship with photography
the very beginning
In the very beginning, I didn’t take photos. In fact, I hated cameras. For example, at birthday parties, I couldn’t just dig into the cake, I had to stop and wait for my parents to take enough photos to practically document the entire lifetime of the melting candles. It was the same with being on vacation. I hated having to stop for photos because for me, photos were an annoyance that interrupted fun moments.
elementary school — photo camp
Luckily for me, in the summer before 4th grade, everything changed for me when my parents signed me up for a photography summer camp, likely thinking photography would be nothing more than a nice skill for me to learn. Being put behind the camera instead of in front of the camera somehow made me fall in love with photography. At the time, I had no idea why, but looking back on the photos I took with that camera, I think there were two reasons I saw something really special in photography:
1. there’s a lot of beauty to find in everyday things
2. photos aren’t an interruption of moments, but a way to remember them forever.
These two principles have stuck with me ever since.
finding beauty in everyday life
I started taking photos of everything I thought looked cool or pretty, whether just at home, or on family vacations:
preserving memories forever
and oh, how the tables turned, I started being the one “annoying” my family members to pause for photos on family vacations.
middle school
The idea of finding beauty in everyday moments was elevated when I got my first smartphone in middle school. I could now take photos whenever and wherever I wanted, and this allowed me to capture a number of random important moments that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.
But with the convenience of the phone comes a big sacrifice in image quality. One way my phone’s image quality was lacking was in dynamic range. To avoid getting too technical, that basically means I could often capture JUST the highlights, or JUST the shadows.
At first I found this creatively limiting, but I eventually discovered that this could make for a pretty dramatic effect sometimes, so I started shooting with this specific limitation in mind to intentionally create dramatic imagery. For example, these two photos emphasize the highlights in a sunset, and in Times Square.
Another way my phone camera was limiting was that the colors straight out of camera looked pretty atrocious. This prompted me to learn how to edit my photos. This just started with throwing filters on my photos rather than actually making detailed, thoughtful adjustments, but it was the start of learning to understand what I liked visually, and how to make an image closer to my tastes through editing.
From shooting so much on my phone, I learned to be
creative under limitation.
This is especially relevant today because of Covid-19 shooting restrictions. Even with Covid-19 aside, I think it’s important to have the mindset to immediately think about creative workarounds to limitations rather than spending time worrying or complaining, because we all face plenty of roadblocks throughout life, and the quicker we can get around them, the better.
high school
Fast forward to my sophomore year of high school, when my passion for photography exploded. For yearbook, I shot:
after school clubs:
cultural events:
on-stage performances and plays:
indoor sports:
outdoor sports:
daytime sports:
nighttime sports:
spirit days and pep rallies:
homecoming and prom:
I shot literally everything, and I tried to always hold myself to a professional standard. As a result, my photography skills improved significantly. When I went to college, I wrote: “Over the course of just two years and five months, Iv’e snapped over 37,000 photos, which coincidentally averages to 42 photos every day. I guess that means photography is my answer to life, the universe, and everything.”
What I mean is: through photography, I got to live vicariously through my classmates and experience parts of school that I never would have been able to otherwise. Sort of combining the principles of noticing beauty in everyday life and taking photos to preserve memories, I found it incredibly fulfilling to document the beauty in important moments in people’s lives, and through that, I found:
purpose for my life.
college
Fast forward to my sophomore year in college. After I spent the summer teaching at the very same summer camp that taught me photography exactly 10 years (half my life) ago, I was able to buy my own camera and lighting equipment for the first time.
By this point, I was getting paid for graduation shoots at college…
… and I had already shot a wedding.
Yet in the spring semester, I decided to take an “Intro to Photography” course. The only thing I expected to get out of the class was to shoot film for the first time, because at this point, the fundamentals of photography were second nature to me. I barely needed to think in order to produce solid imagery.
And there was the problem. I stopped thinking. I grew complacent. I had gotten so satisfied with what I had already achieved that I lost sight of how much more I have to LEARN and GROW.
Ultimately I did get that chance to shoot film, but I got so much more out of the class than just that.
- Because we shot all of our work for that class on these HUGE 4x5 film cameras, it forced me to slow down and put a lot of thought and emotion into each photograph. I often put in upwards of half an hour per photograph, not including planning time. This was my first time doing a more fine-art style of photography, focusing on MAKING a picture rather than just TAKING a picture.
- I was humbled and inspired by my classmates, many of whom had never done much photography before, yet produced some of the most beautiful photographs I’ve ever seen.
- I started staying after class so I could spend more time in the darkroom perfecting my prints, chat with my professor about photography, and grow as an artist.
My time in the class taught me to
never settle,
to never grow complacent or satisfied with where I am now, and to stay humble. Before this class I had lost sight of that, my ego got too big, and this class was the perfect reminder to take a step back. After all, it was this exact mindset that got me to where I was in the first place.
Unfortunately, our time got cut short because of Covid-19. While at home, our final project was to document a significant aspect of our quarantine life, only using our smartphones and strictly in black and white.
This forced me to combine everything I had already learned:
1. finding beauty in everyday life
2. making photos to preserve memories
3. being creative under limitations
4. never settling, and giving each photo my maximum effort.
Despite the limitations, the photos I shot for the final project are some of the most meaningful images I’ve ever shot.
Just as we were heading into quarantine, we learned that my dad had lymphoma (a cancer that attacks the lymphatic system) and I focused my project around that. He was losing weight, was on so many medications on top of being on chemotherapy, and was losing all of his hair — eventually we spent a whole evening to shave his head.
I photographed how I felt about it:
Uncertainty, represented by the fog on the road obscuring what’s ahead.
Feeling trapped because I couldn’t do anything to help, represented by a sliver of light
But of course there were positive moments:
family dinners, and
watching movies with my sister.
Thankfully, everything turned out okay!
the biggest takeaway
Now, thinking about my biggest takeaway from photography, and the most fundamental thing that’s changed about me, we need to look back a little.
When I’ve shot nearly 80,000 photographs throughout my life, I’ve unknowingly created an archive of my life. Being able to look back on so many memories brings my life so much more value, because they remind me of all the beautiful moments that I might have forgotten about otherwise, and as a result, I’ve gained
a greater appreciation for the life that I’ve lived.
