Perspectives...

Note: Forgive me, I know I haven't posted, but my life has been pure chaos the last few weeks. Its taken me three weeks to post this thought process. Its very scrambled. My next post will be more entertaining or enlightening or whatever.

After years (and I really do mean years, its not an exageration) of taking pictures, I've come to one conclusion...its all about perspective.

Recently, I had the chance to take my trusty Canon 35 mm camera out of its bag, dust it off and put it to some more good use. I've had this camera since I was a freshman in college. Used my money from my tax return that year to purchase the camera. I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. I knew the minute I saw this camera in the window at the store, I had to have it. I was so proud of my purchase and protective of this camera, I bought a huge Canon case and camera cleaning supplies. The minute I got to school that weekend, I strapped on my camera and took pictures around my dorm, mostly of the dorm itself, the flowers I had bought, people on my hall, the outside of the building, stuff like that. Some pictures came out cool, some didn't.

I blame that purchase on my freshman biology professor, who's name I couldn't recall if my life depended on it. However, as it turns out, if it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't even have taken photography into consideration, wouldn't have really gone ahead and purchased the camera, nothing. I had to do an environment project for the class, basically take pictures in or around the city I lived in back home, of one area that was an example of a "healthy" environment and another of a "polluted" area. That was easy enough, i'm surrounded by water, and I knew of the lake that I had been going to since I was a little kid that was actually in really great condition (and still is to this day) and then another body of water that connects with the ocean that well, quite frankly is a mess. Hmm. Anyhoo, I went down there, took pictures with, of all things a disposable camera, cause I was in a hurry and just needed to get the pictures done. (Yes, I procrastinate.) Got them developed, slapped them up on foam board and hauled ass back to school.

Went to class that Monday and did a little presentation, about the enviroment, the distances between the two areas I went to, the biggest problems with the bad enviroment, what, if anything could be done to improve the bad area to look as good as the good enviroment, etc. Anyhoo, I had to go to her office to get the grade or whatever and while we were sitting there talking, she asked me about my pictures...where I took them at, what I took them with etc. She said the pictures were really good, had I ever considered taking photography courses or a minor? That thought had never even crossed my mind. But once she put it there, I couldn't get it out. Of course, I, in my course of studying at Longwood, never got around to actually finishing a minor, but I did take some classes. Enough to definetely improve my talent a great deal. Or at least give myself the knowledge to improve it.

Well, in truth, I don't know if I could blame my photography interest on my biology teacher. Maybe it started before. Recently, me and my mom were looking at old pictures from when me and the baby brother were little and as we were flipping through, I stumbled upon a picture of my parents and baby brother as a newborn. My parents were looking down at him, and he's got his little fist balled up, he's all red and tiny. But I can't explain the look on my parents face, its one of pure joy and peace. Me not thinking obvious at the time, I asked my mom who took the picture and she said "you did, you just turned around, looked at us, and took the shot, then turned back around and went back to looking at the camera." I'll have to find the picture and put it up sometime. Its not the greatest picture ever, and its obvious that the camera quality wasn't too great, and had i moved a quarter of an inch up or down, I probably would've cut my dad's head off or cut my brother out of the picture all together. But honestly, for a 7 year old? It shows promise.

I guess that's why I like photography so much. In much of my life where sometimes my perspective doesn't matter or when I can't seem to get my perspective out there, photography is the one place where I can take a picture of what I want and its mine, all mine. Its what I saw at the particular moment, that I wanted to capture. Its nice to know that I can get those out there and maybe give people not only a peek into what I see, but hopefully something pretty too.

This whole perspective thing kind of plays into my life lately, well certain parts of my life anyway. There are a lot of things changing right now. Some of it is going to be for the better. Some of it may not be. And I find that there's not much I can do about all of it. I've been angry and upset and annoyed a lot lately. I'm tired of all those things. I don't want to be angry and upset anymore. In the past and even now, the question once in a while gets thrown out there of "What do you want out of life?" For the most part, truthfully, I just want to be content and happy. I want to enjoy life. I'll figure out the rest later. And some of it I may never figure out. I just know that in some parts of my life, perspectives have been blown out of proportion. Bigger deals have been made out of things than necessary. Right and Wrong and who's on which side of it has been put before friendship. It really is about perspective. But you have to put that perspective in the right frame of mind, or your doomed to never see the whole picture. (Cheesy, yes I know. Don't judge me.)

Anyways...I really do believe that photography is all about perspective. I believe in the end that no two people see something the same way. Or at least they rarely do. There are pictures my friends take that I wouldn't have thought to take, or for me, I catch something at just the right moment that makes me go "I need to get this shot now". But its about what your eye sees. Sometimes, its about tilting your head at the right angle, or squinting just right. And I think the beautiful thing about photography, is that everyone can show off their perspective.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

::sigh:: Ok, so i'm gonna tell a story first...

One of my roommates in college, flat out hated change. I had never met anyone less accepting of change than this girl. She hated being told that change was a natural part of life and that we had to accept it, because there wasn't much we could do about it. In some cases as far as she was concerned, if she ignored change, then things stayed the way they were. Not even accepting the fact that she changed over time.

I on the other hand learned that in life, change was a natural everyday part of life. Change was the way of the world...i'm not saying I liked it, I mean I still don't like when things change right before my eyes. But I understand why it happens...that there is probably a reason for it and that the only way you are going to continue to become a better stronger person is to let change happen. Not only to allow it to happen, but to also allow yourself to change. Staying stagnant as a person doesn't really give you much color. Or let you have much fun.

Change is good, not only in yourself, but in others, in who you surround yourself with. Where you live, what you do, what hobbies you have. I've been learning about pool lately because of the boy. I'm horrible at it, absolutely horrible. But, I'm not as terrible as I was two months ago. I still love music and photography though. Those are my two passions that define me. They define me as a person. I listen to new music all the time though. As for photography, maybe there will come a day when I will turn that hobby into a job. How cool would that be? But those are my true passions in life.

I've noticed that there are people who seem to change at a moment's notice. Whether its that they get bored quickly or they just can't take where they are at in life, they have to change something in there life. Whether it's there clothes or their job or their hair...or their address, they find it necessary, not just to change, but to literally almost rip the roots out of the ground and replant them somewhere else. They seem to have to destroy the artwork known as the life they built and re-arrange things, because they can't take where they are at. At least, that's what I see.

But I don't understand that. Doing that. Maybe its the turtle in me. The turtle in me who loves to just go along and let change happen as it happens. I mean maybe I make a decision and that changes things. But I feel like some people lately are making decisions because they are too impatient to wait for life to happen. And I don't think they realize how that affects people when they make those changes. Again, i'm not saying change is bad, and i'm not saying you can be prepared for every change in life or that change will happen slowly. I don't know, I guess I'm just wondering why people are so selfish to believe that their change won't affect the people around them, their loved ones? Cause people are affected. And yeah, we're grown ups and we all have to accept it, that people are going to make their own decisions and that's going to change things. But how do you learn anything about yourself changing constantly? Never trying to settle down, to stay in one place?

I dunno, I probably am really wrong about this, which is ok. I'm not a proponent of a stagnant life, but shouldn't you keep some part of your life the same? Whether its your home or some part of yourself? I mean, isn't keeping something, some part of you the same, doesn't that show that you are happy with who you are? With where you are? If you constantly change, isn't that just as bad as never changing?

What is this world coming to?

In my line of work, its pretty important to know what's going on around you. I mean, you know, you watch the news, read the paper, check out the internet and you see what's going on. I mean most of it is everyday stuff that we are "used" to, for lack of a better word...fire here, assault there, Bush screwed something up again, congress fighting again, price of gas going up, its all stuff that we as a country have become used to. And as a part of the media, I've become used to it too. I know that Nikki is going to report on atleast two of those items everyday, if not more. Its the way of the world.

But even I have a hard time swallowing some of the stuff I see and read about. There is a moment, where I suddenly become aware of the world around me and wonder "When is enough enough? What is it going to take for people to become aware?"

I was on Drudge Report, where this guy Matt Drudge puts together news headlines on his website from around the world and a listing of the major television/newpaper/magazine websites. I haven't looked at it in a few days, so I figured I'd check it out. And just below the main headline (which is about some British newspaper reporting that the US is in the middle of the new Great Depression, geez, wonderful) there was a headline that I just couldn't ignore...Group of Third Graders Plot to Attack Teacher...WHAT?!...Do you know what I was plotting in the third grade? How to get a new box of crayons from my mom! And this wasn't a small group of like 2 or 3 kids, this was like 11 kids. Eleven 9-10 year olds sitting there plotting how to hurt someone.

I officially don't understand anymore. Any of it. For a second. I mean how did those kids get there? Seriously? I want to know. As it was, the house I lived in, my mom did her best to keep the violence off the TV and me out of the house and stuff. Ok, no ones perfect and I saw stuff on the news, but even that wouldn't drive me to be an angry kid and go "Let's hurt someone" or be a kid who goes "Hey, sounds like a good idea to hurt someone". Again, I don't understand...and i'm trying to. Or atleast rationalize it.

No, you know what, i'm not trying to do either of those things. I'm trying to find the answer to fix this. To fix the state that our society, our world has seemed to slip into. And of course, the first step to fixing a problem is knowing the ins and outs of the problem. But I think even if I know that, I still won't even come close to a solution on how to fix this. I mean how do you fix the way people think, and the "Hyena" complex of going with the group. You can't fix those things necessarily. Half of it is innate, instinctual...half of it is common sense. Which there seems to be a real lack of right now.

Truthfully, I'm an optimistic person. Because I want to fix it. And because I can't allow myself to become downtrodden with the state of the world. 1, I have to believe that not EVERYONE in the world is this way. Also, I mean I do have my own things to tackle personally, which I have to fix before I can go around fixing the world's problems. At the same time, its awfully hard to stay optimistic when you read those things everyday. I still believe the world is going to get better one day, or at least I want to believe that. I just think its going to take a really long time to get there. And its going to take more than just me realizing that there's a lot going on in the world that needs a little or a lot of fixing.

I don't know. I just don't know somedays.