Ask any photographer or person with an Instagram, the smaller the aperture the more everything in your picture will be focused. Photography is all about the perspective, it's about angles, lighting, foreground and shadows. Everything that is in a photograph is meant to be there and is meticulously thought out. Photographers are a special breed of human; they are the types of people who pay attention to detail, they convey emotion through a single image and they know exactly how to portray the beauty they see.

I hate to break it to you but no matter how cute your selfies are or how many pictures of smoothie bowls you take, you aren't necessarily a photographer. For all of the people out there who have spent hours outside standing in freezing water or waking up to catch the first rays of sun, you are the photographers. Not to rain on anyone's Instagram parade but sometimes enjoying the beauty of a simple sunset is far more satisfying than obsessing over the way it will turn out with your iPhone.

Photography is such a special thing because it is so real: every photograph you see is something that is as real as you and I. The emotions embodied in the pictures of complete strangers embracing each other are very raw emotions. The way that we see is the way it is captured. Photographers have an eye for these kinds of things. They live their lives behind a lens, always searching for those emotions or phenomenon. Where you might just see an old house they see a story and the mystery behind it.

What makes photography even better is the viewer's interpretation of a picture. Certain pictures strike interest with people in different ways and sometimes it can speak volumes for them. Senior pictures are a very common standard nowadays and within those pictures, students express who they were or who they became over the course of four years. It gives

family members and friends a look into their loved ones life and who they are. Baby pictures document the very beginning of someone's story, giving you insight into how far they've come. In this sense photography is a way of telling the creative story of someone's life and that is priceless.

The artistry and time that goes into developing that kind of eye is amazing and it changes something within you. You begin to look at the world as a more beautiful place and everything as an opportunity for art. Instead of thinking a cloudy day is limiting you see it as the perfect moody, brooding background to a new piece. Not only do you pay more attention to the detail but you see things more clearly and without tunnel vision.

So try as you might with your Snapchat filters, you still aren't a photographer, but you could be. I warn you, however, not to forget what you are looking at just to get the picture. Remember that what you are capturing has actual beauty, it's not just something to post on social media in hopes of "getting likes". Always remember to share the beauty, not claim it.