Photography as a Hobby
For years I’ve always been a little interested in photography. I’d see all these pictures of people, places, photos combined into a collage, photos of actors in films that became cult classics or photo frames of films that are incredibly aesthetically pleasing and appealing. You see an iconic photo of a musician or actor, one of those recognizable ones like Freddie Mercury raising his fist in the air while he belts into the microphone or him riding on Darth Vader’s shoulders. Or Andy Warhol’s iconic Cambell’s collage. More art in that one but still, but it’s photos like those you make your wallpaper on your phone or desktop, or maybe even as a physical poster or a picture framed on your wall. Moments in time captured in a picture is crazy when you think about it!
My favorite photos have always been of my favorite musicians doing cool poses, pictures of forests and the changing of the seasons, flower fields, oceans… well, it’s mostly nature. Nature is so cool to photograph because most of it is random. Depending on where you’re at I mean but still, nature is beautiful. To see a field of flowers flowing gently with the breeze, swaying back and forth, to see the colors match or mix match to see a rainbow or duo or trio of colors. Could be during golden hour, during the day or during the morning with the sun shining down on them. To see a cave in in another part of the world hold a reservoir of water, with some greenery whether it be vines or shrubs clinging to the entrances of said caves, rays of light piercing through the vines and shrubs to light up the water. Speaking of that: When the light lights up the water so you can see all the particles of dust or debris or little bubbles of whatever. Towns near the ocean with color schemes that complement the surroundings??? The fucking best. They have it good too, living in a very photogenic area.
My point is, is that photography is great because it allows you to capture moments in time however you see them, and people see things differently. I remember someone told me one time they liked the way I looked at the world. I had shown them a picture I took of a fake flower in a tall vase, the light was shining through the balcony door and was hitting the vase and flower just right. Ah golden hour. Even though it was a fake flower, it still looked enchanting. To me it did at least. You look at other people’s photos and you see why they saved this specific photo, or you see another, and you figure why they DIDN’T keep that picture instead. Sometimes you just don’t know they chose this picture over the other one. But that’s kind of the beauty of it no? I definitely look at things differently, especially when I take pictures. I’ve been heavily influenced by anime over the years, and I’ll admit that, because when you see scenes involving nature and flowers, a river flowing downstream, buildings reminiscent of a Tokyo alley that’s filled with lanterns, or a rainy night and the lights reflect off the wet surface… it’s all beautiful and very dreamy and I love that. I love things like that very much. God, I mean, Studio Ghibli does it best and it’s one of the main reasons I look at things the way I do. You ever seen a field of grass being blown by the wind? It’s sick as hell and incredible. In turn, it’s made me look at everything as beautiful, to see the beauty in everything, to look for it. In the mundane, in the bleakest of areas, in the simplest of objects and the way they’re positioned or made. What especially holds true are flowers. If you manage to find a perfect angle for golden hour, when sunlight hits the flowers juuuuuuuuust right, you get an incredibly beautiful photo. The sunlight hitting the petals, exposing more details in the petals more than what had originally been presented, encompassing it in a golden ray that highlights perfection and imperfections, radiating beauty. It makes it feel dreamy and creates this feeling in me I can’t quite articulate well enough, but it’s a feeling of peace and awe. Magical feeling perhaps. If you’ve ever seen sunlight glisten off snow so white, it glitters and sparkles as if there were diamonds in the snow, or when the sunlight hits the water juuuusssttt right and creates this sparkle and shine that creates its own refraction of light… it’s hard to explain, so you just enjoy the fact you’re alive seeing everything shine.
Without rambling too much, I wanted to start my hobby finally after I don’t know how long. I don’t have anything fancy on me, just my phone for now. I don’t remember where I heard this saying, and badly paraphrasing it, but even having my phone as my main camera is good enough to start taking pictures. The pictures I have taken now, I really love them. Sometimes I’ll make them my own background for my phone home screen or anything like that. I’ll be doing my best to improve, especially with hopefully an actual camera soon. Next time I’ll probably talk about my own process and what I look for when photographing flowers or anything that really interest me. Until then…
Later~
