More Than a Hobby: Photography

I've been doing photography professionally for a while, but realized that my friends and loved ones may not know much about what I do or why I do it. Thus, I've decided to delve a little deeper into what is now not only a passion of mine, but what is sometimes profitable as well.

I've never really told anyone why I started taking photos, and for a long time, I don't think I knew exactly why either. I always had cameras growing up. There's no accurate way to keep track, but I'm pretty sure I had somewhere between five and ten film cameras before I was 13. Cameras were a really cool toy for me, and I always had to have a different one. The first camera I remember was a 10mm (I think) camera that used a really skinny, awkward-looking film roll. It was super cool because it had the Super Mario Bros. logo on it, though I still don't know what that had to do with taking photos. Then there was the slew of 35mm cameras I went through. Some were plain, hand-wound and had no flash. A couple of them were fancy, and had automatic rewind and built-in flash. I discovered that I loved taking photos with those, even if they were just photos of my dog, or my sisters, or even sometimes the tip of my finger covering the lens...

Then, things got VERY fancy and I got a Polaroid iZone camera. These babies were awesome. Before phones even had cameras on them (or color screens, for that matter), these were the cutting edge of photo-sharing technology. I could take a photo, and INSTANTLY pull it out of the camera. A couple of minutes later, I had a tiny, fully-developed photo. Some of the film even had adhesive on the back, so you could use the photos as stickers. Really, these things were amazing, even though the film was so expensive my dad put a limit on how much he would buy for me.

These things were so cool the BRITTANY FREAKIN' SPEARS used them! And for the record, she was taking selfies BEFORE it was cool.

These cameras hold a special place in my heart for another reason as well. On my wedding day, my dad wasn't there to walk me down the aisle. So, I took a page out of the book of Pinterest and walked down the aisle with a photo charm of him on my wedding bouquet. The photo I put in the charm was an iZone photo taken shortly before he passed away. I kept it almost 10 years, and it still hadn't faded, preserving his memory so perfectly between those strips of brightly colored paper.

The other photo beneath his (the second charm in the photo above) is a picture of me, taken by a dear friend of mine about 10 short minutes before I found out I no longer had a father here on earth. In a way, it was the last photo I had of the little girl that had a daddy, the one that was so happy and innocent, the one that would one day walk down the aisle with her father. So, I took that girl, and her daddy, down the aisle. I don't know that it's significance would make sense to anyone but me, but really, my opinion is the only one that mattered here. My daddy didn't know it at the time, but by buying me that camera, he ensured he would be with me on the most important day of my life so far. Thanks, iZone camera :)

Somewhere around high school, digital cameras became more affordable for the average Joe. My first digital camera was a present from my Aunt Pat. It had no display screen, and was (I think) about a megapixel in quality. However, it was still REALLY cool. I took a lot of photos of my labrador, Lilly, and other random things around the house. There was no flash, so I had to make sure I used the light right to get photos that weren't too dark. The only surviving photo I can find is this one:

Again, taking selfies before it was cool.

Eventually, I saved (and saved and saved and saved) and bought myself a nice digital camera. It was a Fuji Film FinePix, and I'm pretty sure it's one of the best I've ever owned. I got a whopping 255MB memory card with it, which seem laughable now that I'm shooting with 32G and using half the card in a shoot. What this camera taught me is that it's not the quality of your camera that matters, or how expensive it it, but how you use light. None of the following photos are edited at all, and are exactly as I took them about 7 years ago. Some of my favorite photos from my Fuji include:

A real, very pretty flower.

I thought this tree looked like it had an open wound. 

Some of my first experiments with long exposure and a disco ball.

Another awesome flower.

I'm not sure how I did this, as the ceiling above the light was perfectly lit as well. But hey, I'll take what I can get!

Another experiment with long exposure. Except that the longest exposure I could get was about 1 second, so I just waived a light around and hoped for the best.

Someone left perfectly good beads on the ground, so I took a photo because of the lively contrast to the grayness of the sidewalk.

The photos above came out of what I now refer to as my "artistic emo phase", something which very few people know I even went through, and is now a time I almost laugh at. There was a time when I was an adolescent suffering from depression. I lost my father in Jr. High, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that I really started to struggle. Though undiagnosed, there were enough signs for me to know that I needed something to fight the depression creeping up on me. I found an outlet through art. I drew, even though I had never really drawn before. I wrote prose and poetry for hours in the park because I found it to be therapeutic. Photos also provided solace from the sinister thoughts that crept into my mind, and allowed me to capture my world from my own perspective, and no one else's. I fought the dark through the light coming through the lens. Photos allowed me to slow down, look at the fine details, and really think about all of the beauty that life had to offer- even when life didn't seem to have value.  

I'm so glad that I took all the photos I did in high school. From football games, to band competitions, to tennis and dive, I have those memories preserved forever. Every once in a while I look back on Facebook at the underwater selfies we took, or the silly photos of all the band kids wreaking havoc at Disneyland. Scrolling through the photos reminds me of so many happy memories and brings them back to life. I hope to continue taking photos as I go on in life so that I can always go back. When I'm sad, I can look at photos of my wedding day and my mood instantly brightened. When I feel like I need a confidence boost, I can look at certain photos and I'm reminded that I am indeed beautiful. I don't say that to be conceded, but hubby tells me so every day, so it much be true :)

Some more recent photos...

Photos aren't just pictures for me. As they moved from lifeline, to freedom, to passion, to income, I've discovered that my style and equipment will continue to change. Despite this, one thing will always remain true:

Photography to me will never be "just a hobby".