Cell Phone Journal
I've been going through my old cell phone photos. Old. I had to hook up my hard drive and go through sub-folders.
I always get this weird twinge when I go through them.
I realize there exists some sort of magic when we have little knowledge about what we're doing.
We work freely.
We haven't learned what's wrong or "right" yet. We just shoot what we want.
Then as we learn how to properly take and edit a photograph, we become aware of rules and slowly the walls begin to build.
"Don't place a person here because the light would hit them incorrectly, compose photographs on the points of interest, edit this way for a professional look."
The more rules we learn with photography the more we try to follow them because that's what makes what we call a "good photograph."
Now after all of these years of shooting, I want so badly to get back the feeling I had when I took these photos; when I knew little.
My cell phone had no focus and the inability to control light and I had an amateur thought process. I shot wildly and thoughtlessly and reacted on feeling and less on running through the set of rules in my mind before pressing the shutter.
I really love some of the photographs I came across in my cell phone folders. They are not necessarily strong composition-wise and the light is often times overexposed. But I can't believe some of the scenes I saw while living at my old apartment.
It just reaffirms the quote, "The best camera is the one you have with you." - Chase Jarvis
It doesn’t matter that the phone camera I used to take those photos wasn’t good. It was a camera. And looking at these photos now, they excite me. It’s less about how “good” of a photograph it is, and more about the scene itself.
By not having a perfect camera it opens up doors for our creativity. We learn to work within the realm of it's imperfections.
If you consider yourself an “amateur” photographer - please don’t feel embarrassed about sharing your work. You have something that many photographers try to gain back years later. Embrace the non-directional approach and this exciting figuring out process.
After going through all of my folders I decided to share some over the next while with you.
I have a lot to learn from my younger self.
Dzesika
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