Beauty in the Small Things

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Beauty? In today’s world? You betcha!  The main goal of my edge project was to teach myself about the medium of photography and use the elements that encompass a good photograph to portray the beauty I see in the world, despite all the negativity that surrounds us each day. Ever since I was a little girl, I have been intrigued with photography. My husband and I enjoy visiting art galleries. He loves the paintings and the abstract; whereas, I can’t tear myself away from the photographs and the realism. My edge project taught me how to do something that I have always been intrigued with: taking pictures.

For my project, I took pictures. (At least that is the jist of it.) I went online and looked at a ton of different photographers and their art and tried to discover what it was that liked about their work. I researched elements of good photography and then took my camera outside to practice. I did many different shoots that were all trying to help me practice my newly found art. I took pictures of people (including couples), landscapes, and small details. These were the things that I felt helped me highlight those things that I found beautiful.  After I learned what I could and really practiced and took some good photographs, I edited the photographs I took and then uploaded them to 500px, an online photo community and marketplace for sharing photographs. I also created a website that displays all the photographs I took throughout the course of my project

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The inspiration for my project came from a few different places. The first place, as cheesy as this sounds, was simply my heart. I have always wanted to take pictures and to know how to take professional quality photographs; however, I never felt that I had the time to devote to that while I was going to school. Having to come up with an edge project though gave me that perfect opportunity to teach myself this new skill. I had also come across a great deal for a camera on a website called B&H photo but I was having a hard time justifying buying it still. Once again, my edge project was a perfect excuse. The last bit of inspiration from my project came from our last presidential election believe it or not. I was watching the first stages of the election and was reading articles on Facebook quite a bit during the time I was trying to come up with a project and everything just felt so yucky to me. I watched my friends be mean to each other over politics, and I read articles about crazy acts of violence happening all over our nation. It made me sad and I had to believe that not everything was crazy and yucky and that there was still beauty to be found in the world

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One challenge I came across happened at the end of my project. Budgeting. At the end of my project, I found that I didn’t have the money to finish the last little step: print a canvas to hang on my wall at home. I overcame that challenge simply by modifying the project. I created a website instead of printing the canvas. Another challenge I ran into involved 500px. I had done my project and had everything on track until I went to upload all of my pictures onto 500px. I was unaware that that website had a limit to how many photos one could upload each week. Because of that setback I was unable to meet the deadline I had set for myself.  I turned out fine in the long run, my project just took me longer than I had planned.

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One of the reasons I did this project was for my children. I have one daughter who is three months old currently and I hope to have many more children. I wanted to do this to show them that they can do anything. I also wanted to be able to teach them the importance of and the ability to see the beauty that surrounds them. It is easy to see only the negativity around us; however, it is so important to be able to see the positivity and the beauty as well.  I wanted to teach them that they can use whatever medium they want (photography, music, painting, writing, etc) to see and to share the beauty that they see and find.

           

This project has benefited me profusely. I have LOVED taking pictures and I feel so accomplished with all that I have done. I am grateful that I have a new hobby and that I was able to give something to myself that I might otherwise not have. I know that taking pictures is something I would like to continue to do for the rest of my life. I am even twiddling with the idea of starting a photography business and hopefully start making money doing something that I love doing.