I have grown a lot mentally in the past year—I’d now consider myself an optimist without hesitation. And I’d say I owe a lot of that to the simple action of taking pictures. I’m not talking about “real” photography, though I am interested in that matter, but merely taking pictures on my iPhone. No matter what I’m doing, I’m subliminally on the lookout for anything I deem aesthetic. My fingers quickly pull up the camera app on my phone without even unlocking it, allowing me to snap a quick shot in passing to look back on later.
I think I started to get into this mentality when I started using the app 1 Second Everyday my junior year of high school. The app encourages photographic documentation by compiling one second-long videos from each day of the year into a 365-second video at the end of your year. Throughout the course of doing this for two years, I slowly fell into the pattern of filming a short clip of my day’s happenings (almost) everyday. The act of taking out my phone during the highlights of my day became ingrained into my subconscious. So, naturally, I began to fill my camera roll with anything and everything I judge worthy of being captured—videos and pictures alike.
Today, I am constantly taking pictures on my walks to class and around Berkeley: of outings with my friends, sunsets, nature, cool signs, food, people, animals, buildings, etc. My camera roll is flooded with 27,389 photos of anything and everything under the sun. Capturing the beauty of something allows me to hold on to it in a way; I can savor those moments and the emotions they evoke. I feel satisfied knowing I’ve taken a part of the world and made it my own, as if I’m assuming those aesthetic qualities I associate with these snippets as a part of my talent and character.
Documenting through photography has helped me to find the beauty in life. I constantly notice things without much thought—actually, I could say without any thought at all. The small yet pretty things show themselves to me. The colors and patterns of life come together with such picturesque intent, it is all but I can do not to snap a picture. Filling my camera roll with the beauty of what’s around me fills my cup. In this way, photography has allowed me to adopt a more optimistic view on life—it’s been my “viewfinder.”