About

Photography has been such an important part of my development that sometimes I just assume it's an aspect of life commonplace to everyone, and perhaps, with the technology and social media that's more true, but I take it for granted just how much the hobby is ingrained in my identity. I used to be able to count the years since my first camera, but it gets fuzzier and fuzzier with each recollection. It might well been at birth; I popped out of the womb and the doctor handed me a Nikon.

For myself, photography grants me a weird ownership unique to the hobby. A moment is there for a split-second and then it disappears forever, and with a camera, I become the only person in all of existence to capture, collect, and save that moment from extinction. In a way, if it hadn't been for me, it would be as if the moment never existed. I know this train of thought doesn't work for everything (no one is losing a national monument or a sports event anytime soon), but it's a nice idea. It's as if I have a responsibility to uphold. It's a connection between no one but me and the moment. For now, that's the best way for me to describe the beauty of it.

Of course, photography should never replace or be the equivalent to fully experiencing a moment. Capturing a cascading waterfall is wonderful, and being able to keep a part of that waterfall for the rest of your life is also wonderful, but it's nearly pointless if you don't also put the camera down and enjoy it. Without doing so, the act almost becomes plagiarism. It becomes a moment, an experience that you didn't earn. I try my best to obey this philosophy, and I'm guilty of greedily mining something beautiful for a few good shots as if I'm somehow stripping it of beauty (absurd, I know), but it's something I keep in the back of my mind.

I doubt I would've said anything so existential when I was younger. I just took pictures because it was fun and they looked cool. Now that I'm entering my college years, I'm thinking too much and doing too little, but my love for photography has remained a consistency. In this blog, I have recorded up to the present all of my work: the good, the bad, and the ugly. For the most part, I post Saturdays, and update a few things here and there. Feel free to look around or dig into my older stuff if you're feeling adventurous.

Thanks for the visit,

-John Nieuwsma