My childhood, as with just about any other person, is well documented in countless photo albums hidden away in the back of my closet. Every now and again I find myself digging into the depths of my closet and picking a few of them out and reminiscing on all of the memories they hold. What does this have to do with my love for photography? Well, if I'm quite honest it has everything to do with why I began to take pictures.

My grandma used to be the one who always took the pictures. No matter where we were she was prepared with camera in hand ready to snap away. Graduations, soccer games, birthday parties, heck even haircuts are all forever memorialized in the form of countless pictures. Growing up, and even to this day, I'm not a huge fan of having my picture taken. That never deterred my grandma though. Whether or not my sister, my cousin, or I liked it, she found ways to capture pictures of us.

When my grandma passed away in August of 2012 I didn't initially think about the fact that the one person who occupied the position of personal paparazzi had been vacated. It wasn't until that Christmas when we received our final photo album from her that the realization finally hit that moments in my life would no longer be captured for me to hide away in my closet later on until I felt like pulling it out again later on.

Now, it took me a few years to actually realize how much photography actually meant to me. It was during my freshman year of college that I realized that I wanted a camera of my own so that I could once again begin to document the moments in my life. So for Christmas that year I asked for a camera, and just by chance, my parents had a Canon Rebel T3 laying around that they gave me. It wasn't the newest camera, but it got the job done.

The love affair between a girl and her camera started off slow at first, with me barely touching my camera during the spring semester of my freshman year. I can tell you the exact moment that I knew photography was going to be a pretty big part of my life. It was June 2017. every year my family took a week-long trip to Topsail Island for vacation. I've always been a sucker for a really nice sunset or sunrise, so that week I decided to wake up early every morning and take pictures of the sunrise. Let me tell you, those will always be some of my favorite pictures I've ever taken. In those little moments alone in God's creation all on my own, soaking in the rising sun I realized that I didn't just want to capture the moments in my own life. I wanted to capture all the beauty that this world had to offer.

From that moment on I started to use my camera more frequently. Fast forward to second semester sophomore year. I loved photography and wanted to do more than just go around and take pictures of random sporting or family events I was at, so I started to teach myself how to use manual mode so I could have higher quality pictures. By no means is it easy to teach yourself how to use manual mode, and I still don't know everything, but I had fun with it. I got to go and explore my campus and capture the beauty of it as I taught myself the ins and outs of my camera.

Through that whole learning process, I discovered that there was more to photography than just being the best photographer I could. I was brought back to the original reason I wanted to get a camera, to capture the little moments in life. This past summer, and so far this semester, I've been able to do that a lot more and it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

So yes, maybe I take more pictures than I should but I want to be able to one day look back on these moments and not just have a blurry mental image to look back on. Also, being able to share these moments with others is something incredibly special because I feel like sometimes people get to know me better through my photography. They get a tiny look into life from my perspective, and that's something that you don't usually get to do.

If the idea of having your picture makes you cringe a little bit, that's OK because I was once there myself. Noe I find myself with on the other side of the lens capturing the beauty, and the brokenness, that fills the world around us. So maybe you think I'm crazy for always having my camera in my backpack, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Photography has become one of my go-to stress relievers and my mental break from the chaos of school and life in general.

To me, what started out as a mere hobby has now become my saving grace.

Photography may never be more than just something I do for the mere enjoyment of it, but I'm OK with that because no matter what I will still get to capture the little moments in life and that's thrilling to me!