Photography as It Taught Me a Secret to Finding Happiness Within

In my ongoing retrieval of memories from the late 2010s and categorizing them in specific portfolios, I found myself appreciating the work I did as someone who does photography well.

I took the time to create humps of folders inside a hard drive just for the sake of classifying what I considered my “best” pieces of work. It ranged from my personal to social life, teens to now early 20s, from maturity to even more maturity, and so on.

As I was traveling back in time, it didn’t hit me how this process would affect me with profound serendipity. Lately, instead of losing the willpower to take photos, I find the hobby dulling me. The feeling has somewhat faded and I’m not sure how to grapple with it. I established myself as a class photographer years after I first brought a DSLR camera to school one morning as a high school student. It sure was a flex in class and my peers liked seeing a camera subjecting them to do poses in front of it. After finding out that the camera served not just the purpose of documenting what life was like in school, it became a tool for me to grow closer to other classmates while capturing their portraits.

I consider myself to have a natural eye for beauty. Unleashing my creative potential and seeing others marvel or give continuous praises at how I took the photos were add-ons I didn’t think of having in this journey of photography.

In the current situation, after losing my Mom and graduating from college; while not having the same people looking at the camera after the drought that was the pandemic — I looked at my portfolio and wondered how I took photos that reflected passion, enthusiasm, and creativity in them. I saw beauty in everything — I still do but it was brought naturally well through the photos I took. I found myself receiving the energy that old me instilled through the photos I took. How did I create photos that conveyed feelings just by looking at them? This is the first time I encountered something my past self has solved before being the active problem solver I am today. In my eyes, I found beauty no one taught to me before — only the catch was that, it was being taught by myself 5 years ago. I even saw, in my list of shots, photos of unknown people in their moments, people I believe lived miles away and I intertwined only through crossing of paths in travel. The natural wonder or sense of aesthetics that reflected from photos I’ve taken that I never comprehended back then, is ironically similar to how I usually indulge myself through social media scrolling, envisioning a future to what I saw on screen.

Looking at how I took photos back then, it was the type of techniques I struggled doing now that seems I only did casually in the past. Again, I think the passion faded due to some circumstances that were difficult in my control. Searching in myself the same person that took hopeful photos full of heart, is a goal I also want to achieve again in this lifetime. I didn’t think I could convey stories and feel the character I had all while being mesmerized by the way I captured the photos. I wasn’t just looking at memories, I was also being brought along to what I saw, how I felt through the lens, and how happy I was to just be there — A fellow who lived in the present and didn’t worry enough about what would happen next. He tried to show how much beauty there was in every single photo, he could see the greener side of things and portrayed them with love like an artist passionate in his craft. That’s what I felt while admiring my work 5 years ago. It was filled with pure bliss and passion for capturing moments. It was shared to people with pride which allowed the viewers to see life in its static realism. It felt magical and serendipitous to get caught up in my trapdoor of beauty. Maybe this was a calling to continue photography until it appears to me again how exciting it feels to portray to the viewers what beauty I see behind the camera; and to pursue the moment just as it collapses in life. No such time will ever get taken back but only revisited shortly through memories that can be helped by some photos along the way