The wind is blowing outside of my dorm room right now. From my vantage point I can look into my roommate’s mirror and see a tree branch gracefully swaying by the force of nature’s breath. The sun is streaming through the open blinds, basking my roommate’s bed in heat while mine is shrouded in the shadows of our small dorm room. On the wall behind her bed the sun reflects off of a mirror and throws itself to the wall turning the white cinder blocks a jaundiced shade of yellow. I live in a dorm room, in a boarding school in Indiana, and my room is my studio.
Photography is my passion. When I look through the viewfinder of my camera the imaginary worlds I create in my mind come to life. Most children stop creating imaginary worlds when they are still small, I was not one of those children. My imagination has followed me throughout middle school and high school. It now has such a strong hold on me that I need an outlet, such as photography, to set my imagination free. When I do not photograph, my mind circles around me and I’m literally silenced by the magnitude of thoughts running through my head. Photography gives me the ability to show the world the inner workings of my mind. Images constantly fill my thoughts until one by one I am able to photograph them and set their souls free.
Art is not only a creative outlet for me its also my form of self-expression, being quiet by nature I rely on art to speak for me. My photographs are all small pieces of myself. Through each piece of art I create I strive to show the world a part of my soul. My vulnerability cloaks my photographs like a dark shadow. Without a part of myself in my photos, my photos are pointless and in turn so is my art. To look at my photographs is comparable to looking into the murky color of my irises and staring directly into my mind. The reason I create art is to try and allow the outside world a window to understand me, in hopes that someday I will be able to fully understand myself.
The sun is setting outside my window. The once yellowed walls are now taking on an orange tint as the sun draws closer to the earth’s horizon. Small particles of dust float through the room, streams of light hit them while they gracefully swim through the thick air. Without art my eye wouldn’t catch these details of life. Art gives meaning to life by allowing everyone to stop what he or she is doing and notice the beauty of the ordinary things surrounding him or her.