Category: Inspiration

For my serene photo, I attempted to capture a calm sunset that I captured in my backyard. There are soft colors in the sky during the sunset, and everything else (trees, rooftops, wires) is a dark silhouette. Everything looks so calm and still. Nothing looks rushed or crazy. Everything seems serene…slow motion almost.

The assignment was to capture what serenity means to you. Serenity means chilling around my backyard. When I was taking this photo, I realized that we take serene moments for granted. Especially ones that happen right in your own house. It can be such a simple thing as looking up at the sky that can make you feel like you’re living for a reason. For me spending time in my own yard just observing the birds and bees around me can improve my day. And if you take the time to look up, you start to look less at what’s behind you, and more on whats in front of you.

By using a mason jar as the focus of the photograph, water is both celebrated and made to appear as if it is something valuable and worth looking at in detail. With such warm lighting and a soft, unfocused background, the mason jar of water also evokes feelings and ideas of how much water is a part of people’s day-to-day lives. Isolating the mason jar on its own and having the light streak across the glass is a way to turn a mundane event in life into a recognition of how we should cherish the normal aspects of our lives that we sometimes take for granted. The paper napkin below the mason jar also helps to make the subject of the photograph relatable, which is a reminder that water is important in our daily lives, and this image is not the only way to capture its importance. This message was communicated because water isn’t always only found in interesting or majestic landscapes or perfectly still reflections; it is also present in humbler settings. I rounded the image on top of this to show the photo transforming into the shape of the cup like how water does, to give it a meaphorical deeper meaning that makes you analyze it.

When I saw the concept phrase “heavy as a stone, light as a feather”, I immediately thought of my pet bird Eli. Of course, her feathers are literal, so she was the most whimsical and playful choice to model the prompt, and to ground the mood of this photo. But there is another reason that I brought her along to my photoshoot today: Eli has been a part of my life for almost 11 years. She was with me through nearly every stage of my life thus far, from child to young adult. In the photo, she is leaning forward slightly, eyes narrowed. She gazes toward something invisible outside the frame with an intense focus that makes her appear like a little detective-bird. The tilt of her head and the mood of the image both express the duality of an everyday mood for me. To the outside world, I feel light, whimsical, light as a feather. But inside, I feel heavy, as if there is some stone weighing me down. Eli is both, to me: she is the feather and she is the stone. And in this image, you can see both those sides of her, too. Like her, I am quiet, but heavy. Small, but full of everything. This amazing photograph of her becomes less about a literal bird and more about what a bird can represent, for me the line between weight and weightlessness, the emotional baggage that we all lug around, sitting silently in the wings. It’s crazy how something so tiny can carry such immense meaning and emotion.

I’m in a particular mood, sitting in it, been in it all day. It’s hard to verbalize. Quiet, dense, low. No smiling, no bright colors, no happy faces, and yet it’s not necessarily a bad mood. Moods often feel like that. They’re not always easy to nail down, hard to explain, maybe even defy words. This photo of my brother just kind of sums up this particular mood I’m sitting in at the moment perfectly. It’s raw, mysterious. A mood of its own. The intensity in his eyes… It’s also not a depressed face, not an angry one. Just him. Holding, holding back, and yet still. Pure. Unforced. I chose this one for how it looks. It’s blurred, the light low, feels both real and dreamlike at the same time. There’s no filtering in this mood. The natural low light is a nice contrast to the glow. The mood being exemplified and shown as well.