Why I Love Photography

I can pinpoint exactly when I first fell in love with photography.  It took exactly two events to turn my indifference into total obsession. Event number one happened in the late fall of 2008 during a First Friday with some friends in Lancaster.  We were meandering through several of the coffee shops and art galleries in the city when we came to one that hosted a wall filled with black and white photos featuring a young girl holding a red umbrella.  Immediately, your eyes were drawn to the only colored portion of the picture, but with each framed photograph, once you were able to move your eyes to all that surrounded it, the real story was told.

The second event was a visit to the Smithsonian with a friend several months later.  We were walking through an exhibit of photo winners displayed in the Museum of Natural History and BAM! I was hooked.  These were National Geographic-quality pictures but printed on enormous canvases.  Those brief moments in time that will never again take place in exactly the same way told a story.  The flawless editing drew you into the artist's world and allowed the subjects to jump out at you.

I have realized that what I love most about photography is that it reveals reality.  I can appreciate a painter's artistic ability to recreate or a sculptor's craftiness to get 3-D proportions perfectly, but in my mind, nothing can surpass the beauty of what already exists.  In a perpetually moving world, one excellent photograph can allow you to revel in the artistry of one tiny moment in time.

As I've attempted to hone my still incredibly amateurish skills of photographing, this passion has been fueled by the focus that capturing these moments requires.  Really looking at a subject- studying it from various angles, analyzing how the light reflects off of and around it, seeing the depth of perspective of everything around it- has given me a greater appreciation for the world around me than I ever had before.  Editing encompasses this on an even deeper level as I work to bring out certain colors or bring something in or out of focus.

I have learned to really look around.  Beauty is literally everywhere, from angles formed in the distant horizon to the veins of a leaf floating to the ground by your face.  Stopping to actually focus on it, whether in the moment or with a photograph's help, is so worth the time.