Lights, Camera, Action

For this photo series, I focused on capturing candid moments and on being able to capture them. I was mainly inspired to create these types of images after a sports photographer came by and shared his experiences. During this shoot, I was challenged by the fact that to get good photos, I needed to stay ready the entire time. Without constant readiness, it’s almost impossible to get a good shot. Multiple times during this shoot, I thought I had perfect pictures, only for them to be gone in the next second as people kept moving. Oftentimes, I needed to predict what would happen to get good photos. However, the final result made up for the fact, as I enjoyed encapsulating key moments in my images. As with these types of images, I was able to reflect my community and evoke different senses in observers. For example, in the lazy afternoon photo, people are relaxing and having conversations with each other—showing the small things in life and how they can be just as important. 

Another example is when I took a picture of a group of kids playing Jenga. I took this image in California while volunteering at my local community center. While I was there, observing kids playing, I realized how important it was to have fun too. Recently, everything in life has felt so serious, having to be adult-like, and how it is just as important to let off some steam.

While I did enjoy taking these images, as a photographer, I prefer focusing on places rather than people. Taking images of people depends entirely on others, or if one does stage it, it needs to be planned and needs others for the image. On the other hand, images of place are dictated by objects, meaning a photographer can choose the location, angle, lighting, etc., without relying on others.

A Lazy Afternoon, San Francisco