I’ve never owned a nice Nikon, I’ve only ever used my phone, but I’d say that the idea of photography has always been one that has been bouncing around in my head. As someone who loves to create, I am always taking in the value and beauty of nature and creation around me. I find myself often framing beautiful sunsets and lovely moments through my eyes in the way a professional would set up a scene. Sometimes I do take pictures, rarely ones of myself but rather special moments of my cat or snapshots of experiences with friends. I have no rhyme or reason to how I take my pictures, I just do it in the way that feels appropriate for the occurrence. Sometimes that means quick, repeated photos, later picking through the lot to find the right one, or other times it could look like a bit of set up, framing, getting good angles, and so on. I think I’m generally successful and sometimes capture photos that feel extremely satisfying and “quench my thirst” a bit, but so often I’ve found that it feels like the pictures I capture can never truly depict the beauty of what I’m actually seeing. On the other hand, sometimes it may not truly encapsulate the horror or disgust I feel. With that being said, Telling Stories in Photos and the TED Talk have opened my eyes a bit more to the potential of photography and how with a bit of focus, determination, practice, and passion you can take incredible shots with great stories behind them and found within them. A few points from the tips at the bottom of this week’s resource page that I’d like to focus in on more are “Better Contrast Makes Better Stories” and “Create Depth.” Setting up a scene and taking your time with a photograph more often than not will benefit you, and I feel like if I want to take photography more serious, I need to really consider all of the elements of the visual.

[ For clarification, the image I used for this blog post is one I took while visiting my hometown of Flint, Michigan of an amazing art exhibit. I didn’t just use a random image of art and try to pass it as “photography” haha. I know it’s not very good but it was a really great trip and I wanted to use something related to a personal experience involving photography (in some way). ]