What Photography Means to Me.

A new perspective.

I was in my first years of college when I got ahold of my mom's old Nikon D3200 that she never used. I had no concept of how to properly operate a camera, I had no idea what any of the settings meant, I just knew I wanted to take pictures. I lived in downtown Honolulu at the time, so I would randomly walk the streets of Waikiki by myself. I distinctly remember the first real spark that I had to photograph something. The first photography project that I had ever wanted to work on was a photojournalistic piece covering the stark contrast between the rich tourism industry and the rampant homelessness that was displayed all within feet of each other on the strip. I had thought about it for a while and thought about the logistics of what type of images I would capture, what message I wanted to portray, and how I was going to do that. I took my camera, went to Waikiki, and snapped a couple of pictures before my social anxiety got the best of me. The rest of the day, I spent sitting on the beach, staring at the water, and chain smoking to calm my nerves.

Another idea that I had during those beginning stages of my photography was to cover the displacement of Native Hawaiians from their homeland, and another was to highlight Native Hawaiian small business owners. All of my ideas were squashed by my inability to talk to strangers and my fear of judgement. Eventually, I got into portrait photography. It was easier. I got to work with people who I knew wanted to be photographed, and eventually people were coming to me and asking me to photograph them. There was no need for me to panic. However, in the world of portrait photography, I had lost the passion behind what attracted me to photography in the first place.

There is this cliché saying that a lot of photographers say. Even I am guilty of saying it when put on the spotlight. When asked why we do photography, the answer is always, "because I love capturing moments." Now this isn't a lie. A camera relays an image from a fraction of a second. You truly are capturing a moment. But when it comes to portrait, family, and couples photography, most of these of these moments are manufactured, and most of them are "coincidentally" happy moments. As much as I absolutely love the genuine happiness I see from a family or couple acting out a prompt or action I gave them, it is not reality. Happiness all the time is unattainable. Real life is full of messiness, boredom, discovery, insight, content, and even sadness. That is what I really longed to capture, and I lost that desire because I let my anxieties take the easy route out.

It took me over four years to get to this moment where I came back to reality. I had spent so long wondering why I didn't enjoy what I was doing anymore. A lot of small life and perspective changes led me to right now where I am writing this. I have shut myself off from social media to focus on shooting things that I love, things that portray the realities and mundane details of life. I am on this journey to find my answer to the question, "What does photography mean to you?"

Welcome to my journey.