When I was no more than five years old, I used to be able to sit quietly at a table for hours on end, drawing things that amused me. My mother told me that she was surprised at how focused and absorbed I was in my task. I believe the reason I was so attentive to drawing was because it was a creative and visual act. I am extremely visually-oriented. I am inexplicably drawn to colors, patterns, and compositions. For this reason, as I grew older, I developed a strong interest in photography and later, in film.
As an adolescent, I took on the project of drawing a portrait for every person in my class based on school photographs. I remembered the project being a long and difficult one, as I struggled to capture everyone’s unique and defining quality. Everyone has it. If that essence is missing, the picture would not resemble the subject, except perhaps with a stretch of the imagination. I remembered still the excitement of my classmates, as they hovered around my final work, to see themselves rendered in pencil and graphite. Even though it was not easy, I took great pride in having finished my project.
Now, instead of drawing, I have become immersed in the art of photography. I consider myself fortunate to live in an era of digital photography. Digital photography allows me to capture shot after shot, visual compilations of people, objects, colors and hue, without worrying about running out of film. Whenever I take pictures now, I take into consideration the size of the subject and its relation to the surroundings. I also consider the color contrasts between various objects within the composition and how they play up each other’s strengths. At times, on a bright sunny day in New York City, I would stride out with my digital camera, ready to capture the vicissitudes of city life megapixel by megapixel.
In a way, although I cannot boast of any major talent, I have a natural inclination for the arts. I enjoy creativity and I enjoy visual displays. My interest in colorful arrangements and aesthetically pleasing organization carries over in many other aspects of my life. For instance, I enjoy decorating, whether it is decorating a room or arranging a fruit platter. I take joy in making something that may have been ordinary look just a little less ordinary.
I believe that my natural love for beauty or what I deem to be beautiful has become a life philosophy. I seek out, indeed, I am eager to find beauty in the world. I also seek beauty in people, not necessarily beauty that is espoused in mainstream consciousness. Sometimes I am delighted when I discover a quality about a person that may have escaped me before. At those moments, I have noticed and captured the essence of beauty in that individual. It is my hope that I will continue to live out my life in this fashion, cultivating a keen aesthetic sense, to create works of art and in my own way, make the world a more beautiful place, visually or otherwise.
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