I didn't realize how stifled I am without a camera in my hand.
Two weeks ago, my camera was dropped and almost totaled. My favorite lens is ruined and the shutter-release button is handicapped. (It wasn't working at all until my brother did a procedure in lieu of sending it off for repair.) I'll have to buy a new camera sooner than anticipated, but for those several days when my camera was completely out of commission, I was one unhappy girl.
With a camera, I can see the world. With a camera, I can let others see the beauty I see. With a camera, I can express what I see in a way that words and conversation will not allow. With a camera, I am me.
At least ten years ago I realized that I see life through a lens. Even just driving to church translates into a series of images. Through this journey of photography, I only know how much farther I have left to travel before I can claim to be a photographer; but in the meantime, I live to take pictures.
People may laugh at the shutterbug, the trigger finger. My family may get annoyed at my constant clicking. My friends probably don't understand why I need to be taking pictures all the time. But me? I love photography.
I got a new lens for Christmas and suddenly I can take pictures again. No longer am I handicapped by the lack of control over my aperture and subject, once again I am alive. I can breathe again.
Jennifer the photographer-in-training is back.
World, beware!
2 comments:
Ew - didn't read this earlier. Glad you can shoot again!
Trying to explain this to my husband is next to impossible sometimes. I've been trying, really I have - it's as if I can't be fully alive, I can't fully experience my life without being able to capture some of its moments through my lens.
I am an artist; I never really wanted to go that route and classify it like that before - but I can't help seeing and feeling. It is an art for me to be away from my camera too, to spend time loving and learning to love and reaching out to those in my life.
Don't worry about how far you have to go - you are where you are and you will grow! Just keep seeing. Don't get caught up in composition and equipment and "I want to be a photographer." Let your heart do the seeing. Your camera is only the tool.
Camera or not, you will always see with your heart!
(This comment comes from months and months of "shutter block" - where I have been taking pictures, but I couldn't see. I'm just starting to see again, and let me tell you - WOW. I had forgotten why I love this!)
Thanks, Kelly. You are such an encouragement.
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