Inspiration

This article will be a bit different. I want to deep dive into what inspired me to do photography, how I got started and how photography has a large impact on my outlooks on life.

The Beginning

Growing up in the Bay Area and never really had the chance to travel outside of Northern California really limited what the world had to offer for me. I was not a creative person to begin with and was always focused on career and doing well in school as this was engrained in my background from the start. Getting good grades, getting into a good school, find a job and repeat. Very simple, direct and focused. Nothing wrong with this per se but a straight forward path did not really invoke much creativity in my life and just going with the flow really.

After I graduated from college in 2017, I was able to find a startup opportunity in Los Angeles, CA where I was able to work on my career. It was nerve racking moving somewhere that I was unfamiliar with and making a life for myself down in Southern California. With no friends or family that were close to my area, I was alone. I really had to figure things out for myself. I did not have friends around the area for me to hangout with, meetups were not really working out, I did not know what to do. I walk by the beach everyday before / after work and I see people having fun and enjoy themselves but it was difficult for me to process how they were having so much fun. People were playing volleyball, surf, chill on beach chairs and have picnics. I had thought about joining surfing or volleyball but I was too timid and afraid to enter into those sports and kept to only biking and running by the beach. Let alone meeting people as well.

Going into work from Monday through Friday working from 9AM to 6PM (and sometimes later) was my life on a weekly basis. On the weekends I would drive about an hour or so over to my relatives house to visit in the inner part of LA from time to time but besides that, I would just read application notes / datasheets on parts and studying on the weekends (sometimes continue working as well). I was always focused on doing well in my career and nothing else. This was my life and at the time, I was perfectly ok with this.

Overtime, through the constant work and studying, I noticed that I started to feel something odd where I was just not happy anymore working. I would wake up quite a bit later than normal, would feel always tired and not motivated to continue putting in the long hours. The term that we all experience at some point was burnout. At that point in time, I was not taking care of my own body. Going out to get drinks with coworkers, going to concerts, being financially irresponsible with just going out frequently and eating out almost everyday without exercising. Just living day by day not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

When I transitioned from the startup to the subsidiary of Boeing in 2019, I noticed that I had a lot more free time when I had the 9/80 schedule (worked 9 hours a day and get every other Friday off). I got into photography during this time as I had met folks at the new job where people had pretty amazing hobbies. Some folks into travel, scuba diving, rock climbing, and even archery, that was when I had to make a change for myself. When I learned about that, I asked myself, “what am I doing? What kind of hobbies do I have?” I was clearly not able to answer the question. 

In search for something to do, I was continuing to bike daily during my free time by the beach. I was incredibly lucky for this opportunity and I figured that I should get a camera to start capturing photos of the beach. With some self reflection during that time, I learned to appreciate where I was at in life by being in Playa Del Rey for 2 years and I wanted to document more things that I did. A week after, I purchased a Nikon D7500 DSLR with the kit lenses (18-55mm f3.5-f5.6 and the 70-300mm f4.5-f6.3) from Costco. This took me on an adventure to capture some pretty nice photos around the beach. I thought to myself, “why stop here? Why just stop in LA?” and booked myself tickets to Japan for 2020. As we all know, 2020 was not the year at all.

In 2020, I took the opportunity to watch a bunch of videos on how to use my camera and went around locally in LA to get photos and learn how to edit. It was a bit slow at this point in time but I was able to get inspiration from watching videos on Youtube and reels on Instagram. Even though most of the time I was spent indoors and getting frustrated at the world, I believe it was a blessing in disguise to be able to really hone in on what looks good and how to operate a camera properly. 

The Exploration Process

By 2021, I purchased the Sony A7II and some additional lenses to capture photos prior to my trip to Hawaii. I had purchased the 24-105mm f4 G lens and had brought along the kit lens for underwater photography (with the housing). I was focused on collecting lots of portrait photos of landscapes and had planned to crop them so that it would fit the whole instagram aspect ratio. I only enjoyed taking landscape photos and disregarded the other photos that emphasized on people and food really. During this time, I was so excited to see the world that nothing else mattered besides the view of where I was at.

As immature as I was in photography in 2021, I had to start somewhere and during that moment in time, I really enjoyed where I was in life. Purely just taking photos and being happy. Nothing wrong with it but I eventually realized that something had to be different with my photos rather than shooting landscape photos all the time. 

Change and Reflection

I realized that overtime, my skills in photography has changed drastically as I had gotten more experience. Rather than having the pictures be for the “grams” and take photos where the photos don’t get close to the subject, I had it mainly focused on the pictures just be for myself and for my memories in the future. Instead of the “likes”, I focused more on quality and story of the adventure rather than for showing off to the world where I was in life. I started to take pictures landscape frame instead of portraits and cropping them to a 5:4 ratio for IG. I started to take more mundane photos that don’t really have any general composition but just holds a view for my future mind to remember. I purchased the 35mm f1.4 G Master lens during this change mainly so that I could learn how to frame my shots rather than just zoom in and out of frame to get my photo. Beyond that, I had started to take more pictures of friends and family as well to better remember them and the small moments.

The best thing is that looking at certain photos trigger the sensations from when I was in that moment. Looking at nature photos from a helicopter view triggers a memory of where I felt like I made it in that moment. Paying a few hundred dollars is pricey for a flight and being able to afford that and fly safely is an extremely lucky. Being grateful and thankful that I was able to pay for a helicopter ride with an open door experience, with the gusty winds blowing at my face thinking that I was able to make it there is surreal. Even while hiking, being able to take pictures of who I was with and the candid pose to see how happy friends were on the hike certainly makes my day. Taking photos of food and how the food was prepped certainly brings out the deliciousness of what I had at a point in time is also worth remembering and reminiscing as well. Friends from college who reached out to me and asked them to take engagement photos in Yosemite was also an honor.

Photography to me represents freedom, creativity, exploration and memories. When my memory starts to fail on me after a certain point in time, I want to be able to look back and see all the things that I had done. The friends and family I bonded with, the adventures in places that I am not familiar with, the different foods that I had, the hikes I went on, the times where I visited folks. All of those I want to cherish and remember. Cheers to more photos onwards and more great experiences.