Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Is It Worth it?





In November, I went on a cruise with my family and I had time to spend with my father. He had been sick over the past year. One afternoon, I saw my father looking out the window; he was looking at a beautiful sunset that seemed as though it was covering the entire the ocean. Instantly I thought, “I have got to get this!” I grabbed my camera and took a picture of my father and one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. In January, while at my mother’s house; I took some pictures of the newly fallen snow. My father was there. I asked him to smile and if anyone knows my father, he does not like to smile; but he did and when he did he made the funniest face I had ever seen. About a week later, my father passed away.
In the past two years, I have been really serious about photography; going to conventions, spending hours editing pictures, and taking pictures of any and everything. I had a friend to ask me, “is all of this worth it?” So I contemplated, is it? I thought, what does photography mean to me? The are a lot of people who call themselves photographers; who carry nice cameras and have every kind of equipment that makes “them” feel like a photographer, but to me photography is a whole lot more than just taking pictures and having the best camera and equipment. Seeing a father cry at his only daughter’s wedding, seeing a baby take their first step, or simply a couple smiling and laughing with one another, to me is what photography is all about. Photography is about capturing emotions, memories, and feelings for the world to see.
Photography to me is worth traveling to all the seminar’s that I’ve been to to get the experience so that I can show that experience in my pictures, it’s worth it to me to travel to the many places I’ve gone to to get new ideas, and it’s worth it for me to capture what is important in someone’s life. The reason this is important to me is because I want to give something as simple as taking a picture, a memory for someone that can last a lifetime. That picture that I took of my father looking at the sunset will last a lifetime for all of my family to enjoy.
So to answer that question, YES it is very much worth it! Pictures give you special memories that you can’t get back but you can always look at that picture and remember what you were feeling at that time. Photography is my passion; and when you have a passion for something, everything you do is worth it.




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