Just a shout out to this wonderful article full of crazy photographers, please check it out here –>  http://www.boredpanda.com/crazy-photographers/

Because this is already me… 

 …and this will be me one day

Over the past a couple of days I have been asked the same question: “what are you gonna do after graduation?” And as much as I want to punch right in the face the next person that asks me that question…figuratively of course :)… I can’t help but think and wonder what would I actually be doing with my life.

One of the things I have thought of is, what would be the best thing I could do if money wasn’t an object or I was just offered the opportunity of a lifetime? And my answer tends to be the same lately: TRAVEL.

I want to travel the world, see everything imaginable, and take 1000s and 1000s of photographs of everything I see. I would love to work for say National Geographic and just get paid to photograph a cultural event in Taiwan, or the beautiful scenery in Iceland… the list just goes on and on and even though it is one of my wildest dreams I still like to think that it is realistic. I mean you never know where life is going to take you, and honestly I would like it to take to different places around the world.

Why would I want to photograph all these different places, isn’t the experience about simply being there and seeing and observing?

Well, it comes with the photographer in me, but it is more than that. Think about the places you have travelled to, let’s say you went to Paris and you visited the Eiffel Tower, and you took a picture. Why would you do that? There are a million pictures of this monument pretty much everywhere, you know what it looks like, and you were there… so why take your own photo even with an iphone? This is one of the most interesting facts about the art of photography; it commands a certain amount of responsability, ownership, and pride. Taking your own photograph enhances your experience of your travel site by taking an actual record for future reference. That photo that you took of the same old Eiffel Tower has more value to you, or is at least seen a better light simply due to the fact that you took it. That photo now holds your memories, the time of day, who you were with or around, all circumstances you took note of when you took the photo are now embedded in the picture itself.

I think that is fascinating, which gets me more excited to go out into the world and take my own photos of all the breathtaking places the world has to offer. There are so many unbelievable places in the world that you just have to see them for yourself…

     Turkey

     New Zeland

     Australia

     Madagascar

Check out some more breathtaking places here –> http://aplus.com/a/25-unbelievable-places-on-earth?ref=ns&so=RdNBbD6WEehodkrrRQotzW One day, I’m going to be at those places, and even discover some of my own, and you bet I’ll have my camera with me!

As the end of the year approaches, I have been reflecting on the different things I have learned through my photography class. One of them is that you never stop learning, granted, I still consider myself a photographer in training, so technically I’m not even out of the learning and training phase. However there are so many things I know I have yet to learn, things that I already know and understood fairly quickly, and then there things that I have been doing wrong or things that I didn’t know about. All of this information would have been so helpful had it came at an earlier time, but I believe it came now for a reason.

So let’s get to it…

I learned that I have been holding my camera wrong this entire time

Tip #1: Hold your camera lens from the bottom not the top, it will provide so much more stability and greater support from the main camera frame. Also, it could disrupt the flash when trying to use it since your hand is on the way 🙂

I learned that sometimes centering a subject is not always boring

Tip #2: Place the dominant eye in the center of the photograph for a more captivating and personal portrait shot

I learned that I look funny and will climb into the weirdest positions during a photoshoot

This is my little side step I apparently do while trying to stabilize myself as I try to get the camera to stay in the same place

Tip #3: Don’t be afraid of moving around, climbing, extending, laying on the floor, never mind what people would think of you while you are laying on the floor and looking through a bush trying to find a hole… been there

If you are looking for more basic tips on photography check out this little infographic with gifs–>  http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/260czt/1w@@UMX$+:bgYCOBDE/imgur.com/gallery/c9Uvr

Another way I keep on learning is by finishing out how other people use photography. It’s actually very inspiring, innovative, and creative the way certain people use it and make the medium their own.

Check out this person who decided to make Van Gogh’s paintings look like photographs with a bit of photoshop editing and photo tilt –> http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2RPHmS/Km39KlED:aMbDTYRf/www.photoguides.net/16-incredible-van-gogh-paintings-tilt-shifted

                     

What about French photographer and illustrator Thomas Lamadieu who takes photos from within courtyards, and fills the sky with imaginative and fun illustrations. For him is all about perspective, and finsding that right courtyard and set of tall buildings, it’s just amazing! http://emgn.com/entertainment/this-imaginative-artist-uses-the-bright-blue-sky-as-his-canvas-giving-us-a-new-perception-of-our-surroundings/?utm_source=emgn&utm_medium=emgn&utm_campaign=skyart

                    

Or what about the mom who became instagram famous due to her food creations so her daughter would eat everything on her plate? –> http://fb-694.lifebuzz.com/art-food/2/

     

These are just beautiful pieces of art as well as incredible food photography! Hence why she now has so many followers on instagram. What are some of your photo experiences/lessons while on a shoot? Do you use photos in a creative or innovative way?

Have you ever been amazed by how small the world actually is? I know I have lived through and heard about many different ‘small-world’ stories throughout the years, yet somehow I’m still surprised every time I hear a new one. I think that’s the beauty of it, nothing ceases to surprise us in this wonderful world.

I just came across an amazing and probably the craziest story I have ever heard of… this real life tale is about a guy whose phone is stolen and follows it all the way to China, only to become famous and gain a best friend for life. If you haven’t heard about it, please check it out… it’s so worth the long read: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/i-followed-my-stolen-iphone-across-the-world-became-a-celebr?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.ggnkQD3zy

This story is amazing by itself, but the reason I decided to share it with my photo enthusiasts is because of the way these 2 individuals found each other and became best friends: through photography! So it goes…

A guy gets his phone stolen at a bar, months later, after he gets a new phone, these kind of photos start appearing on his new phone…

        

He’s freaked out, doesn’t know where the photos are coming from… turns out that his stolen phone ended up in China and this man in front of the oranges had it and any photos taken were saved through the cloud since the stolen phone was not disconnected. What I found interesting was that he was able to learn about this man’s life through the different photographs or snapshots on the iphone. He was able to gain some insight into who this man was, what he liked, and the places he visited or frequented. It’s crazy to think that you can get to know someone simply through a couple of snapshots. Once he met the strange orange man in China, he figured out this man had a small restaurant, famous for his oranges, lived in a small town in China and has a couple of little kids. Knowing this information helped to explain those photos.

I thought it was crazy how much you can find out about a person through a simple couple of snapshots, not only that, but they bonded over taking selfies and even more photos. They didn’t speak each others’ languages and yet they could communicate, hang out, and become life long friends. You can actually see as the days go by how better friends they become through the photos, I loved that part of the already crazy story.

I just love how much power photographs can have, how much you can tell from a snapshot, how much they can reveal about our personal feelings and lives in general. We might not think about photos this way, but we just don’t realize how personal snapshots can be, they can even include inside jokes that no one will understand unless they knew you. From now on, let’s try to think about how much our photographs can reveal about ourselves and thus understand the reason behind why they are so meaningful to us.

I came across this short animated film a few days ago and thought it told a great story. Check it out here: http://designtaxi.com/news/374100/An-Adorable-Short-On-Love-And-Photography/#.VRrcxp4vfYs.facebook

The short feature tells the story of a photographer out on a photoshoot by the park when he runs into another photographer trying to capture the same thing at that park. I just loved how they bonded over their photo-taking passion and no words needed to be said.

It’s just like a fantasy… wouldn’t it be great if that could happen? I know several times I am out on a photoshoot and it would be great to have some company, but not any company, not any friend, somebody that understands photography and is trying to capture different shots simply because they are passionate about it. I know some of my favorite times have been when my photography class goes out on a field trip to take photos. It’s just great because we are all trying to see the world through the camera lens, we can laugh about how a photo is not working, give pointers, find something we hadn’t noticed on our own… Everyone needs a camera buddy, I can only bother my friends to come with me and/or model for me so much 🙂

Pretty sure they all hate me already for taking so many pictures of them or for causing us to be late because I had to stop to take photos of everything!!!

I hope I find one one day, even if it is just for the day or as long as the photoshoot lasts. That’s sometimes all you really need, the company of a stranger who at the end of the day becomes a close friend simply because you both share a passion for something. So I’ll leave you guys with this: be open to the people around you, to the people with cameras out in the world, maybe they’ll surprise you… who knows…

IMPORTANT NOTE: people out with phones or ipads or that look like tourists do not qualify for the photo buddy position 🙂