Blog 1: What Photography Means to Me

     Photography is a popular form of art. Most people take pictures everyday using their smartphones or digital cameras, but most of the pictures taken on phones people may not think of as art. Just like art in general, photography does not have a solid definition but rather one that changes based on who you ask. While photographs can be used in work and being a photographer is a job for some, many photos I feel are taken in leisure to capture a moment or memory. 

    My mother is who first introduced me to photography. She always had a camera with her trying to capture my brothers' and my childhoods. When I got to be 12 or 13, she trusted me with on of her cameras when we travelled to national parks in the midwest. While she focused on the friends and family we went with, I looked at the landscape. I wanted to capture what I was seeing so I had something to look at when I got home. I knew nothing about photography, I did the "point and shoot" method, luckily the camera had automatic settings. 

    Although I have had interest in photography for a while, it was only a couple years ago that I spent some time with a camera and played with some of the settings. I knew nothing about aperture and had only heard mentions of shutter speed and exposure but never what the impact would be on images. I am excited to expand my knowledge of photography and tell people i know how to manually adjust a camera based on what and where I'm shooting. 

    As Marvin Heiferman said, "To see and experience the world, we don't only look at images; we take them, and often." Social Media has made it even easier to share photographs with a wide audience. In the span of five minutes, I can see weddings, nature, landscapes, wildlife, people, and architecture. Uploading your own work is just as easy as viewing others, in a matter of seconds people can interact with your post. Although not everything that ends up in a photograph is shared, some things remain private. 

    While I experience what my life brings me, I hope to take thousands of photographs along the way; now with the knowledge of exposure, focus, angling and much more. Instead of keeping most of my photos private to to hide the emotions and feelings captured through them, I would like to grow comfortable showing them and sharing that vulnerability with others.