Why I Take Photos

As a writer, I relate to the world through words, stories, and ideas.

But writing is static: It's sitting at a desk typing sentences on a screen.

Photography, on the other hand, is embodied, visceral, spontaneous. After a day of staring at my screen until the words swim, I love how different it feels to grab my camera and start moving.

With photography, particularly red carpet photography, I find myself huddling in the photo pit, crouching to get a better angle, literally running after a movie star calling her name, desperately trying to get her to turn around and look at my lens so I can get the shot.

It's physical and chaotic and exhausting. Sometimes it almost feels like being a sniper, braced and still, peering through a long lens, waiting and breathing, finger on the shutter ready to fire the second the starlet looks your way.

Like writing, photography is all craft and strategy. It's about making decisions, working hard to make it good. But I feel like I'm using an entirely different part of my brain.

It's also immediate gratification. If I write an article for a magazine, I miiight get an email weeks later when it's finally published. More likely I never hear about it again. But when I take a photo of someone, I can show it to them then and there. And if I'm lucky they might even light up and say, "Oh my god, I love it, wow you totally captured my personality!"

It's making someone feel seen, showing them the thing in the same moment the thing is created. That never happens with writing.