Fate’s Path

Artist Statement: Fate’s Path
For my advanced photography class final my teacher challenged us to shoot six photos centralizing around something we needed to improve on, and I chose to do photos that were completely unedited, or “Straight Out of Camera”. I started to plan my photos out, but suddenly realized that was wrong. Sometimes it is the absence of thought and planning that produces the best images because those are the photos that capture life in its most pure and candid form. So I decided to step back and observe as well as experience life around me, waiting for those once in a lifetime moments that need no help to be beautiful. I carried my camera with me everywhere, and was on a walk with my Dad when I captured this photo. We came across a tiny path splashed perfectly with a halo of light, and I knew its natural beauty was a perfect for my theme. I gave careful thought to my focus point, and after many tries, finally managed to get the right depth of field where the middle of the path, bush, and foreground trees were all in focus while the beginning and end of the path were nicely out of focus. I titled it “Fate’s Path” because like my photo, life can often have blurry futures and fading past, but in the present, hopefully, it is bright and clear. I loved that the photo embodied my theme both literally, as well as symbolically, because it reminded me that life is more than just the physical, or more than just emotions. Life is the beautiful mixture of both and I was able to, even briefly, capture that.