Back to taking photos, again
I’ve always enjoyed taking and editing photos. Ever since I was a kid, I always had this fascination with technology and cameras were a big part of it. With their many knobs and dials, the clicking and snapping sounds of the shutter, with their ability to freeze time and create memories—these devices seemed packed with endless creative opportunities.
Even though I was fascinated by them, it wasn’t until I was around 19 years old that I got ahold of my very own camera (not counting the non-DSLR, non-phone variety). Times had changed and my first camera was a digital one, but it looked, sounded, and felt like all those cameras that I dreamt about as a kid.
I started my journey into photography by focusing on landscapes. They seemed like an easy target. They didn’t move much, all the lighting you needed was provided by nature itself, and you could take hours coming up with the perfect shot. I took a lot of photos of the ocean, sunsets, sunsets over the ocean, hills, mountains, you name it. After some editing, I put them up online under a creative commons license and they ended up in places like this, or this, or that. And that’s pretty much it.
Fast forward several years. Now I’m married and have a kid, so taking photos is, all of a sudden, a necessity. Kids grow up so fast that even if you miss a day or two, you’ll have a noticeable gap in your photo album. And so once again, I found myself firing up Lightroom almost every day to edit some shots for my wife Naré’s Instagram.
Recently, I got inspired by her and decided to take on the challenge to post a new photo every single day. She’ll be the first to tell you that doing something like that is not as easy as it sounds and requires a lot of dedication and some thinking ahead. There are times when the day just gets away from you, or you’re preoccupied with something urgent, or you simply forget.
But you know what they say – in order for something to become a habit you just gotta keep at it for roughly 2 months. And then, supposedly, it’ll become something similar to brushing your teeth, or making your bed, or exercising (if you’re so inclined). But what happens when it’s close to midnight, you haven’t posted yet, and you don’t really have anything ready to go? I guess we’ll find out.
For this project, I started a new Instagram account that’s solely focused on photography so that I can track my progress better and a clean slate seemed like a great idea. Go ahead and give me a follow if you haven’t already and keep an eye out for progress updates because part of this is also so I can share what I’ve learned.