"“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” - Ashley Smith
“There was once a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself — not just sometimes, but always … it seemed a great wonder that the world, which so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty. ‘And worst of all,’ he continued sadly, ‘there’s nothing for me to do, nowhere I’d care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing.’”
Like every snowflake that falls daintily to the earth’s surface, every perspective is unique, and each one captures its own twisted views of life. Perspective molds the world like clay in its strong, steady hands. It connects the dots, colors in the outlines, and reads between the lines of daily life. It alters reality, it knows no boundaries, and it never dies. It is unwavering in its ways and views, but it can change. You can change it.
Perspectives come in may different shapes and sizes, but one that I personally connect with is a perspective through a viewfinder. For one moment in time you can see through that person’s eyes and comprehend their views. Their focus in life. Is it people or emotions? Are they detail oriented or do they capture the big picture? Do they focus on rural or urban lifestyles? Everyone is different, and every one of you views the world in a different light. Even when photographing the same scene, each photographer will find a unique focal point.
“‘Isn’t this everyone’s Point of View?’ asked Tock … ‘Of course not,’ replied Alec … ‘It’s only mine, and you certainly con’t always look at things from someone else’s Point of View. For instance, from here that looks like a bucket of water, … but from and ant’s point of view it’s a vast ocean, from an elephant’s just a cool drink, and to a fish, of course, it’s home.’”
Looking through my photos over break yielded an interesting insight into a special friendship that I cherish. One that has been near and dear to my heart for five years now. Sam and I have been close friends for quite some time. We might as well be twins. We constantly finish each other’s sentences and thoughts, we understand each other whether or not we can string together a coherent sentence, and we are always there for each other as a support system. But one aspect we differ on is our perspective of the world. I didn’t realize it until a couple weeks ago when we took our photo bike ride at the beach. When I looked though the photos later that week, I was surprised to find that I could distinctly tell the difference between the pictures I had taken and the ones Sammy had taken. This came as a shock considering, at this point, our thoughts seemed to be synchronized. Her perfectly timed, detail-oriented shots of each crashing wave that came our way interspersed my collection of stalker-esque photos of the surfers out catching waves that day. Looking back now, I wonder why I was so stunned by my revelation. Yes, we are scarily similar in many ways, but we are our own people. We mold our own thoughts and create our own perspectives with help from the environments we live in. Just as we grow up, mature, and change with our world, so do our perspectives. As soon as our environment changes in the slightest bit, our view on the world shifts as well. Even the most minor change can make a difference. Although our environment can alter perspectives, it is not our sole influence.
“‘What a silly system,’ The boy laughed. ‘Then your head keeps changing its height and you always see things in a different way? Why, when you’re fifteen things won’t look at all they way they did when you were ten, and at twenty everything will change again.’”
2010. A new year. New outlooks. A chance to start over. An opportunity for dreams to become reality. Change. I’ve never really considered it possible to change my perspective on life. I had always just gone with the flow of the world. I let it control me, and I didn’t take charge of anything. Granted, I’ve been amazingly lucky in my upbringing, but there were definitely aspects of my life that I wished I could modify. Having the outlook on life that I did, I just kept on hoping that things would change on their own. But, of course, they didn’t. I wanted to drastically alter my life path, but I didn’t think that it was possible for me to do so. What I’ve learned over the years is to never say never. Yes, I know, it sounds so cliché, but it’s so very true. If you believe that something is impossible, it will be impossible. It seems almost too easy to be true, and I’ve had to come to terms with this fact many times in life. You would think that one time would be enough to understand, but really, it a constant effort on my part to keep myself motivated and believing.
“Milo walked sadly to the window and squeezed himself into one corner of the large armchair. He felt very lonely and desolate as his thoughts turned far away … And yet, even as he thought of all these things, he noticed somehow that the sky was a lovely shade of blue and that one cloud had the shape of a sailing ship … Outside the window, there was so much to see, and hear, and touch — walks to take, hills to climb, caterpillars to watch … There were voices to hear and conversations to listen to in wonder, and the special smell of each day … His thoughts darted eagerly about as everything looked new — and worth trying.”
If you could, would you “do over” any part of your life? True, I have regretted many things that I have done, but don’t we all? As I have grown up and matured, my perspective on life has also changed. There are things I wish I could forget and things I wish I could hold on to forevermore. Each point in my life has been an experience that I have been able to learn and grow from. So would I change a single thing? NO. As impossible as it seemed for me to comprehend this concept, I finally understand that everything I have gone through in my life has made me the person that I am today. I cannot wait to meet the future me, where I will be able to see my ever morphing and maturing perspective on life.
“‘There was one very important thing about your quest that we couldn’t discuss until you returned.’ ‘I remember,’ said Milo eagerly. ‘Tell me now.’ ‘It was impossible,’ said the King … ‘Completely impossible,’ said the Mathemagician … ‘but if we’d told you then, you might not have gone — and, as you’ve discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.’”
*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the quote in italics. They are all excerpts from the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. If you would like to join us on our epic photo bike riding journey, please feel free to click on either of the pictures which will take you a hand-picked selection of our favorite photos from our trip. Enjoy!
~Sithara Reddy~
Waves are Crashing or Waves Have Crashed
You hear the satisfying click of the shutter, and the image is encoded on your memory card until further notice. If only everything could so easily be imprinted on our minds with the same freshness and immediacy as that ever-fleeting moment. Think about why and when you put in the effort to find and use your camera. When might be an easier question to start with. We take pictures during those special events in our lives: prom, weddings, traveling to name a couple. Very few of us common and amateur photographers take pictures of our ordinary lives. Now think about why. Gut reaction answer: we don’t want to forget those beautiful moments that we shared with special people. It’s about remembering. Some of you will already have realized that the corniness of that answer leads you to think, “Well, even if we didn’t take pictures, that night would have still been special and still would be a shared memory with those who were there.” So maybe taking pictures is about sharing those experiences with other people who could not share in the experience. So maybe it’s about expressing emotions and sending messages.
It’s easy to take pictures of beautiful people and beautiful scenery; nearly the entire body of the photograph has been composed and created for you beforehand. Yes, taking photographs is an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the magnificence of life around us at any moment. But what about going back to look at those pictures? What are we looking for when we look through printed and digital photo collections? I admit that often times I am hesitant to look back through my pictures. Sometimes I have excuses: I don’t have time, I have other more important things to do, I’m tired. But really, I know that somewhere in the back of my mind it’s the fear, one could say, of the staleness and limpness of the photographs I have just taken. It’s the confession I make to myself that my photographs are really not that good because they’re never as good as I remember the real thing to be. The photographs have lost the excitement, life, and vigor that I myself was able to experience taking them. Photography is inherently a paradox: a moment that has clearly past must create and foster new moment now. Other forms of art, with the possible exception of film, mostly do not even consider this tension. A painting is timeless; a photograph is necessarily timed.
But during this photoride, I was certainly not thinking about any of this. The weather was not what most would have considered ideal, with the fog that cut down our visibility a lot. But looking back, it really forced us to look somewhere else other than the beach and ocean for photographs. And just as we were about to surrender to the fog and climb back up the hills for some better sunset photographs, we nearly reached the photo finish point, and the most awesomely dynamic sunset was set before us. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins, willing myself to get into any angle and any position to get the shots, nearly feeling as if I could fly. Other people on the street thought we were crazy, but I like to think that we gave them a lot of joy as well in seeing how excited we both were about this sunset. (No one would have expected we were locals.)
That night, I came home, ate dinner, and crashed on the couch. My body was aching for a rest that it desperately needed after an entire day of biking the beaches. And then, that feeling of slight dread started to nag at me…I have to look at those photos soon. I again came up with an excuse…I’m just going to enjoy this feeling and the memories that I have now stored in my brain while they’re still fresh. I don’t want to taint them with my own photographs, with the thought of it having already past. The next day, I finally got up the courage in the late afternoon to import my pictures onto my computer. I still didn’t look at them, until right before bed when I willed myself looked at the first half. I started right-arrowing through my shots, when I realized, “Hey, some of these are not half bad. In fact, I’m getting all sorts of reactions running through me now…some the same as when I took the photographs initially and others completely out of the blue. I would even dare call them fresh.”
So click on the waves to see what emotions and what reactions we’ve managed to stir in you. Experience it for yourself. It’s about seeing, and it’s about feeling, but it’s all about the way we interact with live life.
~Sam Go~
Posted in About Us, Everyday
Tags: Beach, walk
