Amateur Photographer and Unaware Digital Storyteller Since ’96

As a child growing up in the ’90s, I had one of those play camera’s that didn’t actually snap real pictures but I totally pretended it did. I guess you could say that was the beginning of my Photographer/Digital Storyteller career. Before taking this course I never really saw photography as a means of digital storytelling. To me photography was merely an art form that in a sense, could freeze time. This is something that has always appealed to me. Growing up I would take pictures of nature (our back yard, gardens, various plants, the ocean, the sky, etc.), people (family members, friends, complete strangers), and our cats growing up. It was always a means of remembering for me. It was a way for me to hold on to the places and people I’d seen.

Now that I’m older photography is still a mechanism of remembrance for me, but it has also evolved into more of an amateur art form. I find myself constantly taking pictures of everything, a trait that I passed down to my little sister. Most of the pictures I take now are of her and various elements of my everyday surroundings that I find to be intriguing or beautiful. Instagram has contributed a lot to this. I guess you could say the approach I take to photography is a fun, light-hearted one. It is not an art form that I do seriously, but more for my own personal enjoyment and remembrance. I think I’m fairly successful in capturing the feeling of the moment in my photographs, especially the candid ones of my sister. I don’t like to stage my photos. Staging gives them a stiff, fakeness that I don’t find attractive.

There are times when I try to be more deliberate with my photography. I try different angles, framing, lighting, and other techniques. These more deliberate photos often feature some aspect of nature as their subject. After studying lighting from the theatrical side of things, I have tried to incorporate more dramatic lighting into my photography when I can. After reading the resources on photography given to us this week, I realize that maybe I should start trying to be more deliberate in all of my photography. Not only will that improve the work as a whole, but it will also help catch both the moment and the story more successfully. Lighting can make or break the photo if not applied correctly.