What made me take photography? What are my favorite aspects of photography?

I originally took photography because the pictures I took while on vacation were mediocre at best. They came out over exposed (on a digital camera... how did I do that?) and just generally had terrible composition. In addition to my lacking vacation photos, I wanted to take one last stab at being an artist. I'd tried painting, pencil drawing, ceramics and even film making and I wasn't very good at any of them. I discovered I wasn't even interested in becoming good at them. So photography was a last attempt at being artsy, and it worked wonders. Now I see photography as so much more than vacation photos (although they have improved), but rather as a way to capture fleeting moments and emotions. I've been able to use photography to pay closer attention to little details about people, and catch them in the middle of an emotion.

My favorite aspects of photography is setting up the photos. Although I'll always love the darkroom process, it's the ordeal before that I love. I think it's part of the job, to crouch low to the ground for the perfect shot, or to stack every box in the kitchen on top of each other as a make shift tripod (at this point, I should probably just get a tripod). It's the most enjoyable, and I feel most important, part of the photograph. Where the photographer stands determines the photo in most cases, because you often cannot pose the subject without taking away the emotion or purity of the photograph. I've discovered that the best models are those who ignore the camera (which admittedly is hard to do with the loud shutter noises of a film camera). So I enjoy angling myself around them in every possible position to get the perfect shot.

This is a picture I took in Niagara Falls, Canada prior to taking any photography classes.

This photograph was taken on Mount Olivet in Jerusalem, after a year in photography.

This would be the crouching I was talking about... I had to get low and close for our Photo Cubism project last year. My family and a few passerby found it hilarious.