Blog #10 Stepping Behind The Camera

You know that single perfect moment where you feel special? Usually, it’s when the spotlight is directly on you, and every eye can’t bear to look away from you. For me, it’s that moment when my finger pushes down on the black button on my camera. It’s that moment when the picture comes out beautiful, and it’s like a piece of you has been saved into a card soon to be plastered all over my photo wall. My photo wall is a wall in my room where I tape all of my favorite pictures taken. I save them there so that whenever I feel upset or like every piece of me has been sucked out, I can look and see that I’ve got a whole lot more left to offer this world. That wall represents everything I am, and everything I hope to be. The spots filled with pictures are the areas where my eyes have traveled, and the areas which lack photographs represent the places my eyes are soon to travel.

            I don’t know why, but for some reason taking a picture, and being able to have a tiny piece of me  shown in that picture, is the thing that most makes me feel amazing. I always feel like I can do more with my life when I realize that my past has been further presented in the pictures from my past.

            My life behind the camera is dramatic, bold, and filled with passion. My life in front of the camera is shy, wandering, and overflowing with the longing to step behind the camera and press the button, in order to have that little piece of me splashed into my brain. I feel emerged in grace when I hear the click and that picture pops up onto the screen. Then when I step in front of the camera I’m taken back into a dark place where light ceases to exist. I have no idea who I am when the flash blinds my eyes, but when I see others blinded all of a sudden everything goes from blurry to clear.

            My eyesight has been dreadful almost my entire life. In class, often times I’m forced to embarrass myself and ask the teacher what he or she has just written on the board. It also isn’t the best of times when you go for your eye exam during Spanish class just to be humiliated because a group of guys has just realized your vision is at a lacking, 20/50. It hasn’t been too easy to look in front of the lens, but when I’m placed behind the lens and am able to look directly through it, free to zoom as I wish…I see better than I ever did. Life is better with a camera at my side because without it, I would unfortunately be unable to see anything.