As a photographer, you are always trying to best express your creative processes. Whether it’s through the right subject, lighting, position — you try to do your best to convey a feeling.  

During quarantine, I’ve been trying to reexplore what photography as a medium of art means to me. I haven’t been practicing photography much lately, so just putting the camera into my hand felt weird. These photos were taken at the places I’ve been going to during quarantine — my backyard, my grandparent’s backyard and the empty parking lot behind their house.  

While taking these photos was definitely refreshing, and a lot of fun, I still felt bored. These pictures didn’t hold a particular purpose; they weren’t “moving.” These are simply photos of the things and people around me. It was just for fun. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone and stay with that same flow of fun.  

Editing has always been scary to me, up to the point where I will try to get my settings perfect when I go out to shoot, so that I don’t have to edit as much. But now I see how fun it can be.  This work definitely isn’t the most original, or super different. But as I didn’t really know what I was going to get out of these photos before I started editing them, I feel like they’re some cool work.

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Contact Kamilah Arteaga at kam412 ‘at’ stanford.edu.