Looking Through That Lens

I tried to see my life through a camera lens this week.

My typical day includes driving to and from campus, working in the office of a children's magazine, and eating dinner with my parents and younger siblings. These things seem so terribly ordinary that I wondered if there was any potential for a truly good photograph.

I thought that if I could get past holding the camera at eye-level and try some unusual angles, I might make a worthwhile image. So I experimented...and found that some photos I took were okay, some were bad, and some were just weird.

Next, I tried photographing events that were a bit out of the ordinary: a friend's wedding and the high school play I attended this week. There was plenty of material at the wedding, but there were also plenty of barriers to good photography. For one thing, the professional photographers got all the good spots. There was also the problem of working around so many wedding guests-- someone seemed to cross in front of me at all the wrong moments.

The play also presented special challenges. There was awful lighting in the area we waited in before entering the auditorium, and I couldn't get nearly as close as I would have liked to the stage without disturbing the performance.

Is it better to look for creative angles in an ordinary situation, or to photograph things that are naturally exciting?

I'm still not sure.