Photography Taken Seriously

By: Meosha Jupiter

The average person pulls out their camera and snaps a picture to capture the moment that their best friend didn’t notice spinach stuck between their teeth or to remember the moment when their daughter leaves a church on her wedding day.

Photography is more than just clicking a button on a camera; it’s about capturing moments and expressing oneself through a single image. Today everyone owns some form of a camera, whether it is on a cell phone or they own a professional digital camera. All of the photos taken have a special meaning to the person who took them, but that doesn’t make that person a photographer.

“I love taking photos of my friends acting weird,” said college student Nicole Moore, like the average person she has the basic understanding of how to use the camera on her phone. There is nothing wrong with those types of pictures but they’re only special to the ones who took the pictures. Photographers want to send a message with their photos; a message that inspires people or causes them to think differently about the world around them.

“Excellent photographic imagery is essentially instant communication from the photographer to the viewer” said Marshall Dupuie, a photography teacher at Hood College. He has been taking pictures for a long time and has even won awards for them. “Snapping a picture is simply recording an experience with little or no forethought about visual communication.” Having an expensive camera doesn’t make a photographer. It can definitely help but without knowing the basics of lighting and composition it could be hard to take a good photograph. Lighting can greatly affect the overall look of a photo. A strong back light can give the person in a photograph a silhouette appearance or a front light could have your subject squinting.

“I think you really become a photographer when it becomes a lifestyle,” said Samantha Busold, a student taking interested in photography as an art form. To really become a photographer you must first develop a love of photography. Taking pictures has to become more than just taking pictures. As a photographer you’ll want to show the world how a new side of itself. You’re on a mission to show the world how you see it through your own eyes.

“I enjoy photography because it encourages me to explore many diverse subjects in more depth and interest than I would ever do otherwise” said Dupuie.

“It probably is like any other acquired inter4est (music, painting etc.) that a person becomes skilled at and then passionate about; it challenges you to think creatively and continue to develop and improve.”

Sometimes a passion for photography comes by accident. Maggie Thomas is a Hood College student who has been running her own photography business since she was in high school.

“Photography wasn’t my first passion.” Said Thomas, “I’ve always loved football and that’s where it all started for me.” Thomas began taking photographs of her high school football team. “It wasn’t until people started coming to me and asking me to do portraits or cover events that it became a business.”

Picking the subject matter for a photograph is up to what the photographer wants to convey to the public or what his or her client wants. “The photographer uses his or her technical and creative experience to translate (using visual design elements) what was seen and felt into a visual language,” said Dupuie. “The viewer understands that photographer’s intended message, and often feels an emotional connection to the photograph.”

“I want to help the photographer make his vision into a reality,” said college student Ayanna Brooks. Brooks has done modeling for a few professional magazines during her time in college. The photographer isn’t there to make the model famous; he’s there to share an artistic idea with the world with the help of the model.

“I really like taking images and editing them on the computer,” said Busold. Editing photos on the computer can create an entire new feel for them. A picture can be changed from color to black and white to change the emotions given off by the picture or to get rid of something small in the frame that you didn’t notice when taking the picture.

Photo editing software shouldn’t be something that a photographer depends on; it should be used as a helpful tool to advance your meaning of communicating through photography. A photographer still has to focus on design elements such as composition to create an amazing picture. Photography can be a powerful and enjoyable art form that could change your life.

“It’s like what they say ‘Do what you love and you never have to work a day in your life,’” said Thomas. “Even though there is always work involved in whatever you do, at least with photography I can love every minute of it.”

Personal Experience Story

By: Meosha Jupiter

If you had asked me then, I would have told you I was on a rocket ship. I felt myself floating and then my body was jostled side to side like we were exiting the orbit and when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but stars.

When I was in middle school, my mom would drop me off at the babysitter before she went to work. Just like any other morning, around 5 a.m., we got into the car, I put on my seatbelt, placed a blanket over my head, and went back to sleep. This morning was a little bit different as I couldn’t completely fall asleep. I was conscious of my mom mumbling something and the gentle humming from the car engine.

Suddenly, I heard my mom yell, but my body couldn’t catch up with my brain to react. Through the blanket I could see a bright light and my body weight was thrown towards the door. My hands found their way to the side of the car seat and I gripped it tightly.

Then I felt weightless, like the millisecond where you jump into the air and your frozen in space before you come back down. There was this muffle and dull sound of something heavy rubbing against gravel. The star pattern on my blanket filled my vision and there was a sense of complete timelessness.

BANG!

There was a heavy and hallow sound and I felt my body jostled back and forth. I could hear something similar to a hundred twigs snapping rhythmically, one after another. I thought we had crashed back down to earth.

“Meosha?” My mom called out to me.

“Yea?”

“Are you ok?”

“Yea.”

The blanket fell off my head and landed on the roof. The car was filled with an eerie green color and the sun roof was cracked and almost a foot of water had filled the car. I could feel my hair weighed down by water.

My mom unbuckled herself and I. I felt like a monkey rotating my body to get right-side up in an upside down car before resting on my knees.

Bang! Bang!

My mom kicked at the door to no avail.

“You have to unlock the door.” I don’t think she heard me and I couldn’t force myself to raise my voice above its average tone. I reached beside her, pushed the unlock switch on the door, and pulled back on the handle. This time when she kicked the door it started to open. After a few good kicks it opened enough to crawl out of.

I crawled out first and felt like I emerged from a crash on a foreign planet. Ankle deep in mud I looked around at noticed some trees snapped in half while others stood tall. Above me lights peered through the trees. My mom came out behind me and I climbed up a steep hill on all fours like an animal.

When I reached the top hands grabbed me and pulled me to the road. I sat there and watched as my mom came up behind me. She was talking to the people around me but I wasn’t really listening. For a few seconds I felt like I was still floating.

Suddenly the cold sank in and brought me back to reality. My teeth chattered and I shook like there was an earthquake inside my body. I don’t know how much tie passed before the sun started to rise. My babysitter arrived in tears but my mom assured her we were fine and I went home with her to get cleaned up.

“We hit black ice.” She said to my babysitter.

I used to want to be an astronaut when I grew up, but after this I changed my mind.

 

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