Hey all :)
Remember when we were commenting on Malookiz post about photography, I told you that this particular post reminded me of an essay I once wrote for my teacher (back then when I used to be a student). The title of the essay was: "what gives me pleasure." Each student was free to choose whatever they like most and write about it. So, here it is finally! I'll also try to post some of my amateur shots! :)
here it goes:
What Gives me Pleasure.
Photography, according to me, is more than just pointing the camera, shooting, and waiting for the result to come out. In actuality, it is far beyond that, at least from my own point of view. I like to take photographs for many reasons ranging from personal, sentimental motivations to practical concerns. In general, photography keeps me busy in a creative way; it helps me train my senses artistically, and it somehow forces me to have a better look at the world.
I believe that photographers have an artistic feeling or mood to regard things in a different way. As they use their cameras, they see the world with new eyes; they all see it through the lens differently. In that way, sharing pictures allows us as human beings to connect as we share our different views through the images we create by our cameras.
The pleasure of walking, speculating, and noticing suddenly something special stops me to capture that special scene with my camera, steal it, and give it to myself to share it with others. Small details of nature that we, unfortunately, ignore and do not pay much attention to, very much attract my artistic use of the camera. I adore this feeling of communicating with nature and being part of it, and I reflect that by trying to create beauty out of beauty. This, I describe, is a sense of communication with nature itself. By that I am de-familiarizing the familiar and making an extraordinary beautiful picture out of the ordinary beauty of nature. After all, it is a good feeling to take the beauties of nature back home which will be available for me anytime to enjoy. Looking at the picture; at this particular snapshot, gives me wings to fly back in a moment to the place and time where I took the picture. It is an amazing feeling to be able to live one moment more than once. True, it is not the real moment, but it is a memorable shadow of it that temporarily satisfies our momentarily desire to go back in time.
Not only am I concerned with picturing nature, but also people, and in doing this I follow two different ways. The first way is to immortalize involuntarily movements and actions of all the people I know. To try to create an emotion that is so natural into the picture. It needs a lot of directing. In these kinds of pictures I giving eternity to a special feeling; I am expressing the essence of a person, a relationship, or an event. The result forces me to smile, laugh, get sad, or it may even brings tears to my eyes, yet, it grants me a wish-come-true which is to live the event again, to keep the memory for the longest time as possible. More interestingly, these pictures allow me to meet those people I lost and miss in my life, in a dreamy, re-winded moment. It is like a zoomed-in, detailed, noiseless flashback full of feelings and emotions. The second way of which I take photos of people is very interesting indeed goes under the term photo-shoots, which also involves a lot of directing as well as acting. This kind of photography enables me to paint a picture full of colors and expressions. I use a lot of objects to set the background, I focus on the facial expression, and the clothes of the person of whom I am taking a photograph. I also spend time to find the best angle where I will shoot the picture, and I play a lot with lights. In the end, I create a mute person that speaks loudly through the power of his/her eye expression, the amazing match of the colors and the background setting.
Technology has changed in how we take pictures as new cameras are invented everyday, but what makes a photograph interesting is not really changed; a photograph which delivers an intense feeling or emotion to the viewer is what really remains unchangeable; constant. So with all these changes, what stays the same? A picture frozen in time, may be?
P.S
* I was inspired by some books and articles I read about photography
*The blog is not helping me to use "indentation" LOL
*I guess I had a lot of mistakes (not this is the original essay, with no editing at all (A)) hmmm.