Letter to past self.

            Hello! You are most likely reading this at the end of 8th grade, you've probably chosen all of your classes. The good news is that you got into all of the electives you wished, I am currently writing you from one of them. As of now I am in photography class, you have very very little knowledge in photography, and that will change. One thing that you are going to have to learn for this class is that, you need to reserve time for photos, even when you are insanely busy! Use the nights that you can't sleep for innovation and opportunity to get things done (just be sure not to wake anyone up). This one tip doesn't necessarily only apply to photography, but you need to get rid of the stress you have in order to succeed. When you stress you judge yourself and overthink, you have a lot of high expectations of yourself, but when it's said and done you need to realize your best is anything you put enough effort into! Even though the picture you take may not end up exactly as you pictured in your mind, that's okay, just try again. Perfectionism is something you will struggle with for a while.

   When you take photos think about your subject before you begin to shoot. This allows you to fully plan your idea, never go out to shoot with no ideas. Colors can draw attention, but you have to be careful which colors you choose, over saturated colors can draw peoples attention, but it can also hurt their eyes. Don't always go with your first idea, humans think alike, and thus can have similar first ideas.

  The image shown above is actually one of my favorites, it was for the first project in this class. The project centered around composition in photos. This photo illustrates texture, not only does it contain contrast it also has good focus. I would have maybe turned down the brightness, it can be a bit aggressive. It took a lot of positioning to get this photo, I didn't want to accidentally get my own shadow in the photo which is pretty hard to avoid.