I cannot remember the first time I took a photo with a phone. The first time I formally took photos with a camera was during my sophomore year, when I volunteered as a photographer for an intercollegiate soccer tournament and recorded the players on the field. At the time, I thought anyone playing soccer on a field looked... so cool! Later, I became a team manager and also photographed the team along the way...
I began with a Canon. At that time, I truly used it in the simplest possible way: straight into auto mode... Luckily, it still did its job and could produce photos that were at least presentable.
After graduation, I was still using Canon. I took photos of the children at school, and every scene made my heart move. Then I unlocked the experience of using a Nikon... It was harder to learn than Canon, but that was all right. I still used it in the simplest possible way...
Later, I saved up and bought a Sony. When I first started using it... I felt ten thousand waves of regret and told myself I would never recommend that anyone buy a Sony!
But there was nothing I could do. I had bought it, so I could only gather all my energy and fight through learning how to use auto mode and how to edit and color-grade... Gradually, I began to think, wow, I am so happy, because I can finally take photographs I genuinely like, straight out of the camera!
I have always believed that if a photo can come straight out of the camera, let it. If it looks good to my eyes and gives me something to linger over, that is enough... It is a very idealistic thought, because the long road of photo editing is not something I can master through a little self-study right now. And just like that, several years have passed, and I still have not made much progress...
I love photographs that I fall for the moment I see them. With those photos, feeling usually comes first. I cannot explain why. I simply like them... A woman once wrote in a post that she was good at feeling but clumsy at expression. That line suddenly woke me up. Wasn't she describing me too? It is like telling someone that I like him, then answering “I don't know” when he asks me why.
Still, these photographs usually share a few things: their colors fall somewhere inside my comfort zone (if you ask exactly what that zone is... I do not know), they have atmosphere or a sense of story, and they feel as if something is happening...
I am also still searching for what my own photographic style looks like. And “photography” can appear through video as well as still images. I will try making videos in the future too. I am going to figure out video color grading! (All right, I have started making promises to myself again...
I am a fairly conflicted person. When I am emotionally low, I can reduce myself to nothing inside my own head. Then I suddenly jump up and say, no, I cannot be like this. I refuse to believe I cannot figure it out... Anyway, it feels as if I live through this struggle every day. My roommate said that life seems to pass faster and faster. It really does. In an instant, this week is almost over. Why do you think our sense of time changes so quickly? 🧐
So, let the struggle continue. Let us see what my future self can eventually make 🥺