Exploring the Hobby of Photography Personal Narrative

Everyone has one or two favorite photos of themselves, family members, or special occasions that they like to treasure. But for me, photography is more than a way of preserving memories. It is an art form. I love to take photographs that do more than simply capture a moment in time. A good photograph can reveal something about the subject’s character that they may not even have known existed. Or it can show a different view of something very ordinary that changes the gazer’s perspective on life. Although I do not have any formal artistic training, I love how the simple technology of an iPhone camera can give me a different voice in the form of being able to create permanent visual images of the world I see.

A good example of the power of photography can be seen in a photograph I recently saw showcased on the Instagram feed of GoPro, a popular type of technology that allows for action shots of sports enthusiasts. It showed a surfer poised in the middle of a curve of a wave, capturing forever the exciting moment when the surfer is poised in mid-air, seemingly supported by nothing but gravity and strength of will. The wave was so blue it almost looked artificial. The surfer was smiling, unafraid. Without photography, it would have been impossible to understand this beauty. If there was any artificial photoshopping to make the wave seem bluer or the height of the wave to seem more extreme, it was not done for the purposes of lying but to increase the intense visual effect of the photograph on the viewer. Although I will likely never have the bravery or the daring to take up extreme surfing, by seeing such a photograph I can at least gain a better understanding of the power of nature and why people love to surf.

In the future, I would like to explore photography more as a hobby and purchase my own camera. My friends often ask me to take portraits of them and I am proud that I can find ways to capture them in just the right lighting and to bring out what is special about them. I also like to take candid shots. Of course, when I am taking photos of my friends, I need to be respectful of how they want to look. If I am taking photographs at a special occasion like a wedding or graduation, I need to be particularly careful and respectful of the fact that this is a special moment in time and in the lives of the people I am photographing. That is why I sometimes prefer to take photographs of nature, when I can simply let my imagination run wild and try to experiment with unusual effects, without worrying about making the subject look unattractive. When the photographer has free rein, I think that is when photography as a hobby truly can become art.

Sometimes I create special projects for myself. For example, I may decide to take photographs of sunsets every single night of a month, to see the different ways in which the changing of the seasons and the weather affects the sky. Other times, like after a hurricane, I like to take photographs of the ways in which the landscape has changed. I also like to take photographs of wildlife like birds and squirrels because animals never try to pose or look artificial. I love the whimsical expressions that animals have. Sometimes I am not fully aware of what I am capturing with my camera until I take the actual photograph.
I am a shy person by nature who does not like talking in large group settings. But photography gives me confidence. Because of my ability to take good photographs and to notice things that other people do not, I have gained a sense of confidence in myself. I am very grateful of what photography has given to me as a hobby and in the future I would like to explore it more and expand upon my storehouse of equipment and skills as a photographer.