A Grandfather's Help by Kaleigh

A Grandfather's Help by Kaleigh - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

As a young girl from an athletics-oriented family, I always found my outlet in life to be sports. I watched my older brother run laps and swing bats and tackle tackling-dummies from the sidelines. I understood what a life of exercise meant as I was taken with the abilities that athletics provided me. I would run and kick and leap and bound for hours at a time, while celebrating wins with some of my best friends and comforting teammates through losses. The opportunities sports allowed me always seemed to be more than enough. However, as I grew older, I began to understand that there was more to life than simply dancing my way around a field.
This new understanding was developed midway through my sophomore year in high school. I became more and more entrenched in the ideas of people expressing themselves through non-physical activities and instead using their brain as a way to express themselves. On a whim, I decided to take a photography class as my second semester elective. What I didn't realize was there was a history of photographers in my family.
When I came home from school after my second day of class, I told my mom that I was in need of a camera. Upon asking why, I began to explain to her the nature of my newest elective. She jumped up and went upstairs before coming back down quickly with a few photographs in her hands. My mom then told me that her father, my grandfather Gary, who had passed before I was born, was an avid artist and that he had a deep love for photography. She described the dark room that he used to spend hours developing photos in, and then said she always knew that I had his green eyes, the eyes that cultivated a view through the lens.
Photography takes a special kind of eye, one that can see beyond the ordinary and find beauty in almost anything. Teaching someone to edit and process a photo requires a knowledge of tools other than photography. People can become incredibly well-trained at using the tools that computer programs afford to process an image. However, the idea of editing a photograph only comes in handy post-shoot. Therefore, I find being able to hone and develop one’s skills through the viewfinder is the most rewarding and entertaining part of the photographic process. When my mom first showed me my grandfather's old film camera a few days later, I knew that I wanted to develop the necessary skills to shoot film photography. This is because it requires the photographer to see and adjust the camera settings and focus during the shoot instead of relying on the post-production process to edit the image.
If I were a college professor, I would teach photography, hopefully film photography. Understanding the mechanics behind film, and photography in general, is an extensive and very rewarding process. I believe that it creates a more advanced artist as it requires a different process to develop the images. The dark room utilizes specific procedures and combination of chemicals in order to produce an image. According to my mom, this was my grandfathers favorite part. Being able to teach someone how to develop an image in the same way my grandfather once did, would allow me to feel close to him as I never was afforded the chance to meet him. I have a piece of him inside of me because of our shared love for this form of art and being able to teach and inspire other people to find a passion for something that connects him and I would cause me great happiness.