Through My Lens

 

Photography, for me, has never really been about having the best camera or the most expensive equipment. It started with something much simpler: wanting to hold onto things. 

 

As a child, I moved from home to home and never really had the kind of stable environment where memories could collect in one place. Even today, there aren’t many photographs of me from those years. Maybe that is part of why, as I got older, I began noticing how important photographs really are. A moment can disappear. A place can change. People grow older. Buildings come down. Memories fade. But sometimes, a photograph is what remains.

I began discovering my love for photography around 2010, in my early twenties. My first camera was a little Nikon D40 that someone had given me. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t fancy. It was actually broken in ways, but I loved it.

Years later, I bought myself a Nikon D3400 for Christmas. To me, it felt like the biggest gift in the world. Eventually I upgraded again, but even now I don’t have every expensive lens or piece of equipment. I’ve learned that the camera matters far less than seeing something worth remembering.
 

And I see those things everywhere.

It might be one colorful leaf lying by itself on the ground. The way fog settles quietly between the trees. Mist hanging behind a mountain. Sunlight breaking through the woods. An animal standing completely unaware that anyone is watching. Sometimes I’ll just be riding in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the world passing by, wishing I could stop time for a second.

Nature has always been where I find peace and solace. I’m happiest around trees, fields, animals, mud, grass and open air. There is something grounding about putting my bare feet on the earth and feeling the grass between my toes. I’ve always been a country and nature person at heart.

Animals are another huge part of what I love to photograph, especially horses. There is something about their strength, gentleness and freedom that has always pulled me in. I hope someday I’ll have a horse of my own. Until then, I’ll keep appreciating them through my lens.

I’m also fascinated by the places people leave behind, old mills, abandoned buildings, forgotten structures and places that once held entire lives inside their walls.

I often wonder who walked those floors. Who worked there. Who laughed there. What conversations happened inside those rooms. What memories were made before the building became quiet.

Those places remind me that everything changes.

The people may be gone.
The memories may have faded.
The building itself may someday disappear.

But the photograph still stands.

Maybe that is what photography has always been for me without realizing it, a way of giving permanence to things that were never permanent to begin with.

When I look through my camera, the world slows down. The noise fades. I notice things I might otherwise miss.

I don’t photograph only what something looks like.

I photograph what it makes me feel.

And whether it is a horse in a field, fog between the trees, a forgotten mill, a single autumn leaf or a moment that may never happen again, I want to preserve a little piece of it before time carries it away.