Memorie

During college I went through this phase where I panicked over a lack of time to express artistic creativity. I'm not trying to imply that MIT lacks art, in fact on the contrary it is the technical focus of the school that gives the art it and its students produce such a unique perspective. But as for my own pursuits, I found myself wanting for an aesthetic outlet. Because it can be done very quickly, I turned to photography. Whereas a single painting, drawing, sculpture, or any other piece of art takes great lengths of time and investment to complete and results in one fixed perspective, photography allowed me the flexibility to rapidly change how I recorded what I saw, and apply different perspectives to it, whether based on camera angle, positioning, depth of field, shutter speed, contrast, etc. And then there was experimentation with different subjects.

It was when I finally decided to catalog my photographs, most of which were still burned on cds from when I had my first digital camera back in 2001 or 2002, that I realized something-looking back on almost all of my "artistic" shots, I felt near apathy. The only ones that mattered to me were the ones that were simply shots of family and friends. Ultimately, it seemed as though any creative shot felt somewhat anonymous or too produced. If I wanted to create an impression, I would paint it. But photographs for me are about being able to record things as they were, the good and the bad, not as I wanted them to be.

Ultimately I think then that I will keep searching for other creative outlets. Writing has always been a hobby of mine and lately I am rediscovering that, along with discovering that so many of my friends also have been writing various works in their spare time. Literature, whether being read or written, can be such an escape, especially when it is fiction. It allows us to create entire new worlds, with any number of messages and ethical issues that can be brought up by a pen and paper. But writing, like painting, is very time-consuming. So what's next?