KARLY HOU

There's something very special about photography that has always captivated me. As a kid, one of my first toys was a small handheld camera. It was hardly fancy, with resolution so low that I'd cringe today if I compared its pictures to the HD images we can get today, but I was in love. I carried it around with me at school, laid in the grass for hours marveling at the beauty of water droplets on early-morning grass, and waved it around at nighttime traffic, trying to get the perfect light trail. One night, I had my first truly magical moment: I caught a picture of lightning, beautiful branches of pure energy sprawled through the sky. For context, it doesn't storm often in the Bay. That lightning bolt lasted less than a second, but I marveled at that picture for days. It was a precious and fleeting slice of time, permanently preserved.

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Since then, little has changed. I eventually upgraded to a Canon 60D DSLR camera, learned more about light and composition, and got to travel to cooler places. I shoot a few different kinds of pictures: beautiful scenes, cool things I see on my trips, interesting shapes and people I love. My favorite subjects shifted from flowers to beaches to cities to portraits. But in the end, it all comes down to preserving those small, ever-so-special moments. Every picture holds within it a setting and a story, a memory and a feeling, and I get to travel back in time for a little while. When I share that picture with someone else, I get to bring them into my world for a little while.

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I love that picture of the birds flying perfectly aligned, set against a blue sky and mystic clouds. I think it's beautiful. But when I see it, I also remember one of my best friends, who I haven't seen in the longest time. I remember building sandcastles together; I remember the funny faces she made at the soup we ate; I remember laughing about friendship and banana slugs and the state of our society. I even remember the design of her phone case, the color of her purse, the way she wore her hair. And I think that's even more beautiful.

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I am still working on getting prettier pictures, though.