Something Familiar and Lovely

There is something to say about recognizing that something is familiar. When something is familiar, it's considered treasured and prized in one's stores of memory, even when he or she does not realize it.

One thing I consider familiar is my favorite pair of Converse high-top shoes. That may sound like a cliche, but I really do love these shoes. Three things make them favorites: their blue color, the bright and happy details, and the adorable bunnies printed on the sides. These shoes make me happy every time I put them on and wear them because I feel that they reflect the creative and optimistic sides of my personality.

To take this picture of my shoes, I tied the laces together and hung them over my doorknob in my dorm room. I tried to create good lighting by taking the photo in front of the mirror. At first I tried making the flash reflect off the mirror by placing my camera in front of it, but I had a hard time getting a good view of the shoes in the frame. Overall, I like this final composition because it is off-centered and shows off my shoes at a good angle. I did apply some photo editing: On my camera, there is a forest setting that brings out greens and other foliage colors to enhance pictures taken of nature. I used that feature to bring out the green in my shoes.

I took this picture while my shoes were still hanging on my door. I absolutely love the detailing and how happy the bunnies look. I have always loved bunnies since I was little, so I was drawn to these immediately. The way the bunnies are screen-printed onto the shoes resembled hand-painted work on canvas, which gives the pair of shoes an artsy feel. The details cover a part of one side of the shoes, which are high-topped to accommodate fun designs. There is a vibrant style added to the photograph to bring out the bright colors.

I decided to photograph my shoes from a different perspective from the other two photos above. I like the two outside pairs equally, but I wanted to show my favorite shoes in the context of shoes I just like. All of the pairs of shoes that I wear have some sort of story behind them. My flip-flops came from a place I love to go to in Florida, I wore my silver flats to my high school graduation, and my "bunny" converse are my favorite shoes of all time because of various elements in them that make me smile. I wanted to switch things up, so I used a black-and-white setting directly on my camera and snapped the photo.

In conclusion, my Converse shoes with bunnies printed on them are what I consider familiar. I loved taking pictures of this pair of shoes because the shoes themselves evoke feelings of positivity and happiness. Anything in general that evokes those feelings draws me in. I believe that it's a part of my personality and the way God made me, because I strive to be positive and cheerful in all that I do. I also believe that we are drawn to familiar things because they make us happy and secure in who and where we are. Since God draws us in and makes us feel happy and secure, that's a sure sign that He wants to be familiar with us as well.

A Couple of Quotes from Freeman Patterson

“As long as you are worried about whether or not you will be able to make good pictures, or are concerned about enjoying yourself, you are unlikely either to make the best photographs you can or to experience the joy of photography to the fullest.”

            I love this sentence because it relates so much to real life. It relates not only to photography, but also to academia, athletics, talents, and one’s self-confidence. If one is not confident or secure in what they do, be it photography, academics, or other talents, they cannot completely enjoy whatever it is that they are doing and it shows in their work. Also, if one is not confident or secure in themselves, they cannot fully enjoy what life has to offer. By my own personal experience, the best photographs I have taken have been by accident or with little effort involved. In fact those photos are usually my favorites in my archives on my computer. It is because I did not worry about the composition or placement and simply pushed down the shutter button that those moments were captured and are now treasured. The same goes for anything else I’ve done. If I throw caution to the wind and go for something, I tend to reap amazing results. Also, if I have the self-confidence to believe that I can do something and not worry about messing up or making mistakes, I usually do well. 

“A small object in a large context often expresses the theme of a photograph more clearly than a single object that fills the frame.”

            This sentence intrigues me because I have actually seen photographs taken in this particular composition and have been fascinated by them. I’ve tried to create pictures of this style myself, and they have turned out pretty well. The act of placing a small object in a sea of context makes a photograph more interesting as opposed to a single subject in a larger frame in my opinion.  There’s just something about a lone item, be it a person or thing, in the midst of a landscape of either in the countryside or the city.  It makes the one viewing the photograph wonder what the story of that person or object is. If there is a photograph of  a person walking in a large field to a barn, why is he walking there? Are there horses that he takes care of, or does he like to come to the barn to think? The composition that Patterson describes here has an air of mystery that a picture of an object filling an entire frame does not. It makes the photo a work of art as opposed to just a picture taken without some sort of visible context behind it. It seems to be the difference between surface-level and truly interesting and thought-provoking.