Final Portfolio and Statement

Since I first picked up a camera a few years ago, the first thing that I was inclined to photograph was nature.  Everything I could find, I would shoot, extremely up close and personal.  It amazed me how just looking at a different angle or getting up close could change what you see.  I was drawn to the little worlds that could be found in the center of a flower or a drop of water on a leaf.  

I believe that often, we are too busy or careless to take a moment to stop and look around us.  If you look from a different perspective, you’ll find that there are many beautiful things around us, especially in nature.  I like to take a step back, or in this case, a step closer, to see what might be hidden in different places that we wouldn’t always stop to see.  In this body of work, I hope to showcase these little places of wonder in hopes of inspiring others to stop and look at them as well.

These images are unplanned, not-posed scenes.  I have no idea what I might find once I’m out in some sort of nature.  The images are simply of what was there – the little things that already exist.  I like the use of depth of field in this work because it isolates out the noise.  It removes all of the craziness in the background and leaves only the little world that is there.  Zooming in close on the objects helps give them a sense of isolation, which is important since some of these images were not taken in full wilderness.  Some were taken at Point State Park, just feet away from downtown Pittsburgh.  The goal though, is to isolate these moments of beauty, and show them without all of their ugly surroundings.  It’s amazing what parts of nature can be found, even so close to a big city.

I decided to center my images on the smaller corners of the world because I feel that the world is such a huge place that we lose our focus.  We get so caught up in the bigger things in life that we forget what it is that keeps us grounded: nature, and more specifically, its beauty.  I want my images to inspire others to take stop taking these little moments for granted.