let your love grow tall.

As I held the camera in my hands, I lightly pushed the button to focus the image. I glanced over my camera only to appreciate that what was being captured was more than a picture itself. Realizing that this joy-filled child could literally be bursting with the same glow in my photograph, my admiration grew for him as the shutter of my camera took the picture. As he ran around me latching onto my neck, he pleaded to look at the image. While we reviewed the image together, I looked over at him only to see the glow on his face. My eyes dropped back down to look at the photograph. He then looked at me and shouted "un mas photo, un mas photo! Por Favor!" I bursted with laughter as I began to grasp this unconditional love I had for this child, and this new driven desire to capture life through a photograph.
After finding that photography clutches so tightly around my heart, I have come to understand that I have the ability to capture something extraordinary, something much deeper than the photograph. Whether it is a laugh, a smile, a tear, a love, or a hug. It's a story. I have come to enjoy simplicity in its works; a picture can be worth one word or a thousand words. Photography has such a tight grip partly because I won't let go. The images that I capture are a piece of me as much as they are of that person. They're as much of their story as they are my story. I feel like it's almost a way to remain connected, giving someone a part of your love since ultimately they just gave you a piece of theirs in your photograph. I don't know what it is. I just love photography and I love people. I guess I just feel like I can combine the two in a different way. In a way, I am just passing on the love and photography provides me with a foundation. I am not aware whether or not photography is my first love, but it's the first time where I feel like I can truly capture something beautiful. True love, I suppose.