Photography, I think, is different for everyone. There are underlying principles like the Rule of Thirds, leading lines, and even just the concept of Gestalt — something that is visually pleasing and meaningful as a whole — but, there is still room for expression; room to make it yours.
When I set out to take photos this first time, I didn’t set any parameters. I wanted to know what I could do with a clean perspective, just to see what my own untrained eye would notice. I wanted to give myself a sort of base that I could grow and learn from. With this in mind, I took pictures of whatever seemed to catch my eye, and I played with the position of the subject, camera filters, angles, all of those things. In the end, I came up with around 120 images, which was way more than I thought I’d end up with. Taking the photos was a fun experience, and my first time walking around Austin on my own, even if my mom wasn’t too far away. It was strangely liberating to have this sort of creative freedom and a new area to explore. While taking the photos was entertaining, picking my favorites was the hardest part.
In the end, I found twenty photos that really resonated with me and what I believed best represented my own perspective. I chose them by looking at the composition of it all, and just thinking about what it was that caught my eye in the first place, and I also discussed the matter with my cousin, who is also an avid photographer in her spare time. Looking at the photos and discussing them allowed me to really look at them and see what made them so endearing to me. For instance, the photo of the empty bike rack could seem just like a random urban photo, but for me it captured something deeper. That photo seemed to represent Austin and how busy it was. There were no bikes left motionless in the rack, they were all fulfilling their destiny, facilitating the mobility that drives Austin’s streets. The sheer length of the line the racks formed also captured the magnitude of the statement, as the angle makes it look as though it stretches a vast distance.
Although all the photos had some kind of meaning for me, it was the landscape shot of the buildings reflecting the sky that really made me speechless. The reflection that occurred just seemed to blend in with the sky in such a beautiful way that it seemed it wasn’t even really there. When I first saw it, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I felt as though I had discovered some sort of jewel in the middle of a bustling town.
So, for me, what I photographed seemed to be things that inspired me or made me look at Austin’s urban nature in a different light. The photos I took were captivating, and in some cases and oddity I wanted to capture as part of the flare of the town (like the clothing I found hanging on a tree). There was so much going on downtown that I didn’t know what was important to me, and I drove my mom insane not knowing where to park or pull over. Really, I don’t think I found those places and those photos; they found me.
