Hi, this is a page about
My Photography Journey.
Long Story Short.
Instead of boring you with the details, let's cut to the chase:
I love photography.
My brain gets incredibly impatient when I try to draw, so using my camera instead of a pencil has been life-changing. How life changing, you may ask? Well, that's where the hopefully-not-so-boring details come in.
My First Fix.
My love of photography started around the same time I started middle school. I was on a trip to Hawaii with my parents and stole their camera to take pictures of the crazy flowers there. The ego boost that came from taking better pictures than my dad stopped me from putting the camera down.
I didn't start getting into portraits until my best friend forced me to take pictures of her after school (shoutout to Kayla T). I happily obliged, of course. After years of getting to know my camera and, ironically, forcing my other friends into shoots, I finally got good enough to get, well, bored. I hate to say it, but it isn't much of a challenge to take pretty photos of pretty people.
Breaking the comfort Zone
Since the summer of 2019, I've started to get a little bit more creative. More planning and thought went into these photo shoots. I wanted to capture more than just a pretty face. I wanted to convey abstract concepts into real life scenes. This transition was . . . hard, to say the least. One of the first shoots I tried this strategy with was Colored Citrus (January 2019). When we started, instead of falling easily into my "photo flow," I was stumped. It took more brain power than I'd like to admit to arrange my citrus-y props. I didn't even end up touching those photos until a year later because I still had a really primitive editing program, and I didn't want to limit myself. If you've seen the end products, you'll understand what I mean.
Fast forward a year later, and out came Censored (February 2020), my first ever creative shoot where the image in my mind exactly matched the photo in my hands. The amount of times I've tried and failed to do that really made me appreciate these photos.
The learning Curve is steep.
I'm not sure this really needs to be said, but landscapes are much different to shoot than portraits. For years I was so discouraged from shooting landscapes because for the LIFE of me, I couldn't make them look good. If it weren't for my partner's constant pestering, I would have sworn off the genre entirely. As tempting as it is to virtually burn all evidence of my old landscape photos, I've decided to leave them for the sole purpose of showing my improvement. Compare the photos from Death Valley (December 2020) and Black Rock Desert (July 2020), and you'll know what I mean. And that was only 6 months! Just imagine what ten years will do (fingers crossed). At the moment, I'm still trying to find my voice in landscape photography -- I really don't want to take the same picture everyone has seen a million times. I want to show parts of the landscape that are easily overlooked. Eventually, I'll be traveling and seeing the weirdest and most overlooked parts of the world. Hopefully, I'll be good enough so you can see those places, too.
Thanks, Daddio.
Before I set off to the scary world of college, my dad graciously gifted me with a camera. With that camera, I've taken close to 20,000 pictures from 2016 to 2020. During that time, I've traveled across cities and countries, deserts and forests. I've met so many cool people and made the wackiest memories. I am so thankful that he gave me this opportunity to pursue this passion. Because that's exactly what I'm doing right now. I have so many more projects planned, I doubt I'll be bored for the rest of my life. If people want to hire me on the side? That's great. If people want to buy my prints? Sure, that's super cool. If no one cares and I make absolutely no money? That's okay, too, because I truly love wasting my time with this stuff.
So, if you've read this far, thanks for reading about my journey. And if you're interested on where the rest of it goes, then stick around and find out with me.