My Why
"Cherish your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows and live your todays" - Anonymous
Life is a precious and delicate thing that we have all been given without instructions on how to operate it. We just appear screaming and then somehow naturally adapt into the new world without the slightest idea of what is to come. Not realizing that we have yet to find out purpose, our reason for being. I remember seeing or reading something about finding your why sometime in high school. Yet another assignment that would no doubt steal time away from me. What is your why in life? How was a teenager to know the answer to that? What makes you happy and what fuels you to do anything in your life? Why do I do what I do? Why do I do anything I do really? At the time, it was to big of a question to ask. Looking back, it is no surprise to me now. I remember sitting in yearbook thinking about this question, already knowing the answer but being impacted by what society considered "practical". It was a different time then, a different world. It's no surprise that no matter what I did, I always gravitated back to photography and writing. My creative side always comforts me at every turn. But why? What was my why in life?
Growing up, I always remembered my dad with a video camera or a camera and in turn my hands also held a camera. I remember distinctly my dad taking pictures of the family, any event, every milestone and with every gift we got. Everything was captured. I used to moan and groan when he asked to take a picture with the new sweater I got at Christmas or to pose for my first day of whatever grade in school I was in. Looking back, I feel the sting of tears as I fill with appreciation for all the memories that he did his best to capture despite my protest. Photo album after photo album, home video after home video, shows how happy I was growing up. I was lucky; he documented the proof. But what he didn't realize was that he instilled in me an appreciation of each moment I have. I breathe everything in, feel everything more deeply to fully capture a moment that may change the course of my life forever without me even realizing it in that exact moment. That's why the smell of campgrounds, campfires, sagebrush, the pirate water at Disneyland and certain foods instantly bring me joy and peace. That's why each emotion, no matter how gruesome, I let myself feel them. Feeling the sun on my face, watching snow fall on the beach and hearing utter silence as I take it all in. He is why I am who I am. He is why I soak in each moment as if it will be my last. I am so thankful for my dad for so much that words cannot explain.
I have always been amazed in those moments that I sat and absorbed moments. How was it that one environment could be so strikingly different from the next? It always baffled me that being at a Tim McGraw concert that brought tears of joy in all the music and singing and screaming, I could also get those same tears of joy gazing out at the water camping by myself with only the breeze flowing the trees singing to me. I have always felt things deeply, but the appreciation and respect for those deep feelings didn't come until I was older and understood that those feelings were okay to feel. They weren't things that made me "too much" or "dramatic" but what actually brought realization in those moments that my heart and soul were pure. I enjoy feeling those emotions when I look at those photographs, reminiscing those moments. Looking at old photographs, not all are happy and joyful. But the memories within them will last throughout lifetimes. Photographs capture historical events that tear our hearts out. Photographs also capture a different lifetime that make those who weren't alive in those times curious of how they could ever live without the internet. I am thankful there are pictures to document our existence, the joyful and even the horrific. It helps us remember and reminds us to cherish.
In the present day, I have taken what has been instilled in me into everything that I do. Also finding a passion for traveling, wanting to see everything beautiful that this world has to offer. I have been to England, Scotland and Ireland so far and plan to return. Witnessing vastly different landscapes and cultures has widened my small world. I want to capture the color, the smell, the feelings of the memories we have in a photograph. Take pictures that you may not even realize are core memories in the making. My why in life is this, to capture it all in a photo. I love writing, but I always felt a loss for words verbally and on paper. As if there wasn't a dictionary of words to properly describe the emotions that emanate from a photograph. How can anyone describe the swell of complicated and intricate feelings one feels looking at an image they cherish? I don't think I could ever explain into words the week-long trip I took to Seattle, Washington. The feel of the bay air at sunset turning Mount Rainier into a stunning blue and a vivid purple as the sun kept sinking. How would I be able to explain the feeling of amazement seeing the Aran Islands in Ireland going from a seven-hundred-foot intimidating drop to a calm sky blue bay with it's own lazy song. There will always be things I want to see over and over, to feel the nostalgia wash over me. That is what I strive to capture in my photographs.
Creating masterpieces by stealing them from real life experiences to show that we can truly time travel through photos. Showing that one can relive a moment by looking at a photo. They can smell and feel that moment they see in a photograph. Seeing vibrant life whether it is in color or black and white. It is my why in life. To live life vibrantly. To capture that life through photos. If you catch me looking like I am on another planet, don't mind it. I am just absorbing everything this life has to give. I am living my why.
