by Kirby Marquez
Photography is the art of capturing light with a camera, usually through a digital sensor or film, to create an image. Images entertain us, inform us, and give us a remembrance of our past. Looking at different kinds of photos gives us different feelings and emotions.
Photography is also a way of distressing ourselves around a stressful environment, and it helps us to break away from it. Photography is a fun thing to explore. Whether you’re a professional or a beginner, you can always enjoy it as much as you want.
There are different types of photography to enjoy. Landscape photography captures nature landscapes, such as mountains, rivers, beaches, and many more. Wildlife photography is there if you love taking pictures of animals and wildlife. Portrait photography if you want to capture the stunning smiles of people. Street photography if you love taking pictures of urban places and people’s daily lives. Lastly, photojournalism shows captivating images that illustrate a real-life situation, current events, that tell us a story using an image.
Photography is powerful as it can see what our own eyes can’t. It touches our feelings, soul, and emotions. If you want to try out photography, remember these three tips that serve as your head start in doing photography:
It’s not about what gear you use or what you currently have.
Photography doesn’t encourage you to buy expensive cameras to take good images. Yes, they have advantages, they shoot high quality, they can provide better lighting, but that is not the basis of your creativity.
Creativity doesn’t depend on gears; it depends on you. Instead of arguing over the best camera or whatsoever, start finding what you prefer and take photos as much as you can. In that way, you can enjoy photography rather than spending a lot of time dwelling on gears. Whether you use an iPhone, DSLR, or android camera, it doesn’t limit you in expressing your creativity through photography.
Create more than consume.
This is also the problem with photographers on why they easily quit: they consume more content from others rather than what they create. In our daily lives, we spend so much time scrolling up and down on Instagram. Seeing photos taken by other people make us feel less about our work. We tend to compare their work to ours.
Stop spending a lot of time on social media and start thinking about great ideas to turn them into reality. Stop comparing your works because it will not help you in your progress. Stop comparing yourself to others, instead, compare yourself to who you were yesterday.
Have fun!
This is what photography is all about. If you’re not having fun with what you’re doing, it makes no sense. The real essence of photography is all about having fun and enjoying the process. Discovering and learning something is a great experience and doing this with fun is a lot more interesting.
If you’re having fun, that is all that matters because you don’t have limits for yourself, and you will love to do it again without feeling bad about yourself. Having fun keeps the negative vibes away and keeps your mind peaceful.
We’ve been through tough times lately. It’s okay to stop for a while. Take a step back, breathe out, and let go of stress. We are too young to drown from stress and anxiety so, if we can do something to manage it while we’re young, let’s do it as soon as possible. There are lots of things we can do to enjoy life and while we’re in the process. Taking a photograph is a fantastic way of seeing who we were and what we used to be that brings us a smile to our face and a reason to keep going.
Kirby Marquez, 21 years old, BA Journalism Student from Cavite State University-Main Campus in Indang, Cavite. He loves photography, filmmaking, and traveling. “You can change what you do, but you can’t change what you want.” – his favorite quote from the Netflix series Peaky Blinders.
YSPACE is a platform open for young writers to contribute their worth-sharing thoughts and stories to the world. It is a space for young people and by the young people which aims to promote a strong sense of empowerment and inspiration to young Filipinos.
