teri2224's photostream  

The best way to describe myself would be to explain to you the reason why I love taking photographs. I guess you could say that I started taking pictures when I was 6 years old, the day my grandmother gave me my first Polaroid camera. She's the one who taught me the basics. Over the years, she must have spent hundred's of dollars buying me the Polaroid cartridges that were only good for 10 photos and back then she was always the subject of my pictures.

"You cut off my feet in this one, " she'd say flipping through my 3 x 4 prints. "And I have no head in this one," she'd scold.

I remember feeling frustrated, I mean, I was only a small child and all I wanted was praise, but she was always correcting me. She kept giving me pointers throughout the years and as my skill progressed she would buy me newer and better cameras.

It wasn't until I was 12 that I truly understood what she was doing. One day she pulled out a big box of pictures and started sorting through all of them one by one.

"This was my mother and father, " she said pointing to the image of a couple in a worn out picture," and this is the house where I grew up. This was my wedding day, and this was your father's first day of school…"

One by one she pulled out picture after picture, all of people who were long gone or places that she hadn't seen in years. Some pictures made her smile and others made her cry, but they all meant something to her.

They were all her memories… her life.

"Take many many pictures. Take pictures of the people you love, of the places you enjoy being, of the things that you did," she said to me that day. "Don't worry about the money spent doing it because one day when you are as old as I am and your memory is almost gone, your pictures might be the only thing you have left of those people you loved so much, and that will make those pictures priceless."

She was right, you know, the only things I have of her today are the many lessons she taught me, the pictures I took, and this wonderful hobby that she introduced me to.

To me photography is not a science; to me photography is an art, the art of expressing emotion through pictures, the art of capturing a memory. I believe that the only way to portray emotion is to be emotional about the subject you are photographing. I don't believe in spending hours altering the images, I believe in capturing the moment as it occurred. I believe photography is beautiful and since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I believe that the only person that should truly love your photos is you.

I miss my grandmother, and my hope is of one day teaching my own children and grandchildren the true meaning of a photograph just as she taught me….