My room is full of pictures, that they covered the walls, hiding the ugly pink wallpaper I've wanted to get rid before..but lately I have become so busy that I didn't have the chance. Mom scolded me for having the pictures on the walls, saying I could have kept them in frames and albums or scrapbooks, and made my room a little less cluttered. However Dad and my older brother Jake both agreed that it was a nice idea. Dad appreciated photography because he used to be a photographer for a magazine, and I remembered back then, he used to take pictures of me and Jake. He would ask me to sit very still, or smile broadly, or just have fun and be wacky and ignore the camera. At first I didn't understand why he asks me to do this, but later I realized that you have to use the right emotions in conveying the message through your picture.
So I grew up with a deep interest in photography. A passion, Dad used to say, so on my sixteenth birthday, he gave me a digicam and a vintage camera from one of his precious collections. Yeah, it was cool, and that's when I decided to take pictures of almost anything. Mostly my subjects are my family and friends. I would come down the stairs while they're busy laughing and having fun, and say, "Smile!" then click on the camera. Even my dog, Max, is a common subject. My boyfriend, Michael, starts to appreciate photography now, so mostly he hangs around at my house and we take several shots.
The pictures in my room convey a single message: HAPPINESS. All of the subjects are laughing, smiling, having fun, their hearts screaming happiness out. That's because that is how I want them to be. I don't want a place of sadness in my pictures; what i want is to show life's ways of being happy, even in the slightest or smallest of things. This confused Michael, and he always tells me that life isn't always happy; that I have to look at the other side, the hidden side.
Well at first I didn't understand his philosophy, but yeah, he is right. Life isn't always about being happy; there are also inevitable pains and troubles. There is also sadness. And I know it can't be avoided..it will come no matter what.
Once, while I was busy fixing my camera, Michael excused himself. He took his Polaroid with him and went to our front yard. Looking at him, I saw his familiar smile and his enthusiasm as he began taking pictures of the flowers in our garden, and I decided to take a shot of him. Then I remembered I was still fixing my camera, so I went back to it and sat on the front porch all alone.
When I was done, I stood up and called Michael, saying we should take pictures at the park. He came closer and handed me a photograph. When I looked at it, I realized it was me--he took a picture of me while I was fixing my camera. So I asked him why, and he answered me with a philosophy that I took as one of life's lessons.
"We can't always have a ready smile for everyone," he said. "Sometimes, even if we want to smile, we must not, because that is not what we really feel. People smile in pictures because they want to be seen in their happiest, because they don't want to be disturbed by LONELINESS. People smile because smiles hide the pain and the things they really feel. If you really want to capture the happiness of life, you should take stolen shots, because they show the true happiness of a person." He smiled at me. "You weren't smiling while you were fixing your camera, but i know you're really happy. That's what i want you to put in your pictures--true happiness which is found not in forced smiles, but in simple ones that force happiness out."
