By Caleb Garcia | Photographer
I’m not afraid to say that I’m not a creative person by nature. My entire life, I could never really say I was good with anything that required even the slightest idea of creativity. I wasn’t gifted on the stage, could hardly play “Hot Cross Buns,” and don’t get me started on drawing a straight line — I still shudder at the idea.
I say this because I never thought I would have any creative vision. Real things, grounded ideas like government, politics or forensics were my forte, my future. All those things were concrete, not relying on vision, chance or some idea of creativity I was never gifted. I thought this was set in stone. It’s all I thought I would ever do, or ever be.
It all took place on a random day in October of my senior year. I was in my high school yearbook team, with zero interest in photography. As a copy editor, I merely typed and crowdsourced. We were on the verge of a serious deadline, hunched over computers in a panicked newsroom with mere hours to spare. My yearbook sponsor was frantic, chasing different solutions to problems that just couldn’t be solved in time. A page that needed photos of the volleyball team was due that night. We had almost none, but with a deadline fast approaching, it seemed we had little hope. We had only one chance, which was catching the volleyball game that evening. The photographers would surely be able to pull through and save the day, right?
We didn’t have a single photographer available. The team wanted to give up, to weep and to throw in the towel on an unsuccessful deadline. All hope was lost until my sponsor made a split-second decision that changed my life forever.
Shoving a camera into my hands, she ordered me to go photograph. To put this into perspective, this was the equivalent of telling a four-year-old child to disarm a nuclear bomb. As we all know, children should be focusing on their ABCs, not ICBMs. Sending me, a lowly editor without one creative bone in my body, to photograph a critical game was almost downright insane.
As much as I’d like to say I saved the day and took award-winning photos, I most certainly did not. While it was clear I didn’t have much of a “vision,” simply picking up the camera opened my eyes to see in an entirely different way.
Every time you look down the viewfinder of a camera, you see a moment. A brief moment of life and light that vanishes the next second. Time flows after all and the world is constantly changing. But with the loss of a moment, a new one arises. A new memory is waiting to be captured. With the click of a button, these moments are held forever, gently preserved in a digital space where time never goes on and nothing ever changes.
And when you look at these photos, those split second pieces of life, you begin to notice the little things. Everything, from the biggest celebrations to the intimacy of a quiet conversation becomes so much more detailed. The joy of a sports victory, the emotion and passion behind a protester’s chant, the tears at the edge of someone’s eyes when they speak of someone — everything is more alive, more human.
When I picked up the camera, it was as if I saw the world differently. Nature constantly had stories to tell. Small moments that could make legends and tales for generations. You notice the way people laugh or the way their eyes brighten when they have a story to tell. The small freckles on a friend’s face, the symmetry of morning dew on the grass and even the little flecks of green in the eyes of the girl I love.
I might have had a hidden talent all along. It’s possible that God opened a door for me. One thing was set in stone, however. These experiences are not exclusive to just me. Anyone can have their life changed in just an instant by picking up the camera. So I beg of you, with all my heart and soul, to try it. Pick up a camera and try getting shots of your nature or your friends. Give yourself a chance to try something new. Seeing things through a new lens might reveal how much hidden beauty is all around.
