Ever since I was in middle school, I’ve been interested in photography. Now I’m a freshman in college continuing to pursue my interest in this unique form of art. Through the years, I’ve learned so much about photography and the techniques about it, but I’ve also learned many things about life in general. Here are a couple of examples!

Photography has taught me to live in the moment. When I first started taking pictures, I would look back at them and reminisce about the experience of the moment I had captured. The emotions I felt when I took the picture would flood back into my memory and only make me want to go back to experience it again. I quickly realized I can’t re-experience something, no matter how hard I try. When I take photos for recreation like this, I don’t focus on the exposure or focus of the picture, I focus on the moment I’m trying to capture, the emotion, the vibe of the scene. These pictures always turn out to be my favorite because they are usually more personal and show people as their genuine selves.

Good photography is capturing someone’s true self. If you are taking portraits, it can be easy to pose a person in the right location with the right clothes on, but capturing a person’s true identity is what can be really difficult. From what I realized, portraits that everyday people are exposed to usually are advertising something, like clothing or makeup, but do you ever look at a portrait and think, “Does this picture tell me anything about this person?” Now, I understand that in many cases that’s not what the portrait is trying to do, but when a photographer captures the true identity of a person, it can be truly amazing. It can be really hard to do this, but photos that capture the true identity or emotion of a moment can easily become important historical pictures like this one below.

Photography has also taught me that everyone expresses their creativity in different ways. There are many different editing techniques in photography, along with many other fine arts, and none of them are better than the other. It usually depends on opinion. Of course, there are some components that make a photograph “good,” like focus or maybe exposure, but distortion, colors, and subject are all things that make each photographer, or artist different. I’ve learned to now look at a photo and not only judge it on my immediate reaction to the beauty of the picture but also think about what the artist had to do to get this image and how he or she edited it. Now when I look at all different forms of creativity, like writing design, or even people’s emotions, I try to not focus on my immediate reaction to it. Instead, I try to ponder the piece or situation and understand it differently.

Photography and many other forms of art can be very helpful when trying to understand the people that surround you and the place you are in. Everyone is creative in some way or another, and if you don’t express that creativity, I advise you to start! Maybe pick up a camera (or even your iPhone!) and snap some artsy pics. Just see where it takes you!