Hello everyone, and welcome to the blog! This space will be dedicated to sharing various photography-related content. You can feel free to send me an email on topics you would like for me to discuss by clicking “contact” at the top of the page and filling out the form or drop me a comment below — I am open to any suggestions you have!
Future posts will be more formal and less long-winded, but today, I want to sit down and share with you how I got into photography and why it captivated me enough for me to want to pursue a degree (and, hopefully, one day, a full-time career) in it.
How photography?
I don’t remember exactly when — maybe when I was 9 or 10 — my mother’s mother and her husband gave me my first point-and-shoot camera (which, funnily enough, I still have, and, yes, it still works!). This was, of course, back in the days of ye-old film photography, and I vividly remember the excitement of finishing a roll and my grandmother going to Wal-Mart to get it developed and printed. Most of the photographs weren’t very good, I’ll admit, but I did enjoy taking them, and this is what planted the first seed in my journey to becoming a photographer.
When I was 16, I had a history teacher who was also a photographer, and, for whatever reason, I showed her a few pictures I had taken with a point-and-shoot Nikon that my dad’s parents had gotten me for Christmas (again, I still have this camera), and she told me she thought that, with some instruction, I could be a pretty good photographer. This planted the second seed.
The third and final seed was planted during my Freshman year at Birmingham-Southern College. I began a work-study job in the Fine Arts Department, and my coordinator’s office was located in the art building and directly beside the photography professor’s office. Everyone talked about how amazing this professor was, and, as I got to know her, I knew that I wanted to take her introductory photography class. I also knew that this class was difficult to get into because, what can I say, my professor was in-demand, so I asked if she would be willing to sign me in during registration, and, kindly, she said yes.
Now, what you need to understand before I continue is that I went into college genuinely believing that I wanted a business degree because everyone said this was the thing to do if I wanted a job in the future. My first sign that this would not last, however, was when I insisted on using my Christmas money to purchase my own Nikon DSLR to use in class instead of borrowing one of the department’s cameras.
I was so excited for this class to start. So excited, in fact, that, being the impatient eager-beaver that I am, I started learning how to use all the various modes and functions on my dSLR in January before term started in February because there was no way I could let this magnificent machine I had spent $475 on sit around untouched until the digital unit of my class rolled around. This should have been my second sign that being a business major was not going to last.
We started off this introductory class with a film unit. During this segment, we shot on black-and-white film and learned how to process and print it ourselves. This process was both frustrating and thrilling to me. I started off not being very good at it — I, like many of my classmates, ruined several rolls of film and had several more turn out with a few usable images while the rest were blotchy from being incorrectly rolled onto the processing wheel — but, by the end, I wound up with a few winning rolls and a few winning images (again, some of which you will find on this site). We spent the second half of the semester on a digital unit, during which we learned how to use the cameras, how to use Photoshop to do basic enhancements, and how to print our photographs using professional printers. I continued to find success in this course and, to my excitement, my professor approached me (as she does all of the students who are not seniors and show potential in photography) to invite me to continue on into her upper-level courses.
The third sign that I would not continue as a business major came when I decided at the end of the semester to declare a minor in art. Looking back now, I knew in my heart that I wanted to do photography, but my head was still screaming that I needed to stick with business because, you know, the job thing. I began my Sophomore year taking an introductory art history class, which I loved, and Two-Dimensional Design (which I took with my photography professor because, yet again, she was willing to sign me in). It was at this time also that I took the introductory business class (which I had not been able to get into at all my Freshman year), and macro-economics. Though I enjoyed the professors, I was not entirely good at the classes, and I found them difficult to enjoy anyway because my head and heart tended to stay in my art and art history courses instead of in the business courses.
The following semester I took a course called “Photography: From Chemistry to Digital," and this was the class where I found what I loved. I struggled through it, and I was not always good at it, but this is where I found a true love for film photography and all that it offered. This was the course that encouraged me to try out all of the toy cameras that I love so much today — this was the course that shaped who I would become as a photographer. It was also in the middle of this semester that I officially changed my major to “Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art” and joined forces with an amazing group of artists who I am so lucky to call my friends and colleagues.
The rest of my time in college was, like the photography courses I mentioned earlier, not always easy, and, also as I mentioned earlier, I was not always good. I told myself (and, admittedly, still tell myself sometimes) that I was a bad photographer and would never make it. However, because I don’t know how to quit, I kept going. Why? Because, at the end of the day, photography gives me a purpose and a goal. One day, I want to pursue a graduate degree in photography so that I can become a professor and teach others to love photography as much as I do. I do photography because it is my way of showing everyone who I am and how I see the world around me. It is my way of keeping track of my life so that one day I can look back at the photographs and remind myself where I came from. It is my way of pouring my frustrations and joys and everything in-between into something constructive and beautiful, into something that I can share instead of always having it all locked inside.
Why photography?
Because, at the end of the day, it is my way of connecting both with myself and with everyone else, and that feeling of connection is the single most important factor in my life because, without it, what is the point of anything, anyway?