A life in moments

I have always found a sense of joy in taking photos but for years I was too self conscious of sharing my work with others. I spent years taking low quality photos on whatever phone was in my pocket at the time, then I would over-edit, darken, and post them on a site where I had zero followers. At the time I enjoyed knowing that no one else would see them and that in this little bubble I was free from judgement. I was free from being judged for doing something I truly enjoyed.

Now that I have gotten older, I can look back on those times and reflect on the struggles I was facing with youth. Whether it was being too young, too inexperienced, or being unwilling to recognize what I was aiming at. It is clear now to see that the largest of these struggles was a deeply rooted depression and absence of motivation to pursue life. This is seen clearly in my earliest work as each photo lacked color when there was abundance available. Or, when a well-lit scene was purposely darkened and the details became lost in the shadows. I think it would be easy to say that “I didn’t know what I was doing”. But, I feel that there was a purpose in all of those unsaturated, dimly lit photos. In a way, my work reflected the intensity of the complex emotions I was learning to wrestle with. At the time I struggled to see the vibrance of life. No matter how hard I looked, the world appeared to me as a bland and uninspiring place. Those early photos were my first attempts at seeking that beauty, and it quickly became my own sort of therapy.

To quote a book that is important to me feels necessary, in the book of Matthew chapter 7 verse 7 there are five words which stand out to me. “Seek, and ye shall find”. We must keep our hearts and eyes open to the beauty that lay dormant around us, waiting to be noticed, and appreciated. My photography has become a way for me to constantly “seek” the beauty around us and capture the precious moments we may never find again.