Life through a lens

Aesthetics holds the definition of appreciating the beauty within our world. Aesthetics is finding the awe worthy areas of our life. Aesthetics is a way of living and understanding our world. In the last three months or so I have had the privilege of challenging my mind and my heart to do better at appreciating the world I live in. I have come to realize how big the world really is, I have been pushed to cherish every moment, I have learned to appreciate those moments of awe and finding that more often, and above all I have begun to look at our world in a way that I never thought possible.

Many may say that music expresses a lot about humanity and the human experience, but I think it is wrong to say that any one art form expresses one thing better than another. I think rather than art having something that is intentionally being expressed, it is more about what the person who is in the presence of the art is open to receiving. It is not right to say that music expressed humanity in a way that no other art form can; a piece of architecture, a film, a picture or a painting can all express humanity in their own ways. I don’t think that any one art form is completely unique in what it provides for us as humans, each and every form of art no matter what it is has a million and a half possibilities to express something and that is the beauty in art. Free will and who we are as humans has a lot to do with what we feel like a certain piece of art is expressing. For example, photography is an art form that I do not understand, and I never really feel anything or find any sort of expression within it. My brain may just be wired against photography, but I never feel anything when looking at a picture of a street. I connect to architecture, music, and works of literature, these are the areas where I find that I am being connected to humanity. I connect with parts of things that many others would never and parts that many other do but I myself am unique. The things that people connect with are different across the board and an area where I see a big grand expression could be something that the person beside me sees nothing in.

In that it is like we speak the language of arts in a sense. Architecture for example is one form of art that I am particularly interested in. A couple of years ago I spent some time in London, on my first afternoon I went and simply walked around and took in all of the sites. I truly felt the “awe” when standing in front of all of the architecture in London. It is grand and beautiful, details everywhere that one couldn’t miss and it is powerful, it is hard to imagine that people would feel things in that. But in the same way I see frank Lloyd wrights work and I feel even more, in every one of his homes I felt grounded, calm and almost as if I was a part of the home. The lighting in the home, the position, and the little details down to the type of rock used all comes together to create something that in my opinion is just as awe worthy as the grand building in London. To some the direction a building faces, the lines used in the architecture, and the light being let in are all a language that communicates certain feelings and to others the lighting, subject, focus, colors, and all that come in photography can really speak to them; the same goes for every other art form there is.

With this communication and expression, I don’t think we should or could limit something like this to one art form, each and every artistic piece has the freedom and ability to be anything, express anything, and communicate with different people.

If we narrow our discussion down to solely architecture and photography, I have a favorite by far. With architecture, I have an easier connection and understanding of this art. I have an unexplainable connection to architecture really, I can explain this love for buildings, but it is something that has for as long as I can remember piqued my interest. Instead of explaining why I love architecture and trying to explain this I am going to get into photography. Photography is one art that I have always struggled to see as art very often, I don’t see my family pictures as art or the pictures I take on my camera roll as art. I have had a very harsh view of photography through this whole thing because in my eyes taking a picture is so effortless, you don’t need any special talent or anything. You can take a random picture on even a flip phone, throw a filter on it and call it a day and someone would look at it and find something in it.

But here I am with this view on photography and, this epiphany, if you will, happened for me I was sitting here thinking about the picture that would be captured if someone took a candid photo of me right now and I realized how much would be seen through the picture by a certain pair of eyes, maybe not everyone would see beauty in it but someone could. Before this photography seemed like a cheat, a sloppy piece of work that somehow get praised, but now I feel like that is the beautiful part of photography. Something so little and so effortless can be turned into something so big.

So, what good comes from looking at the lesser known art forms? Without embracing all of these art forms we are missing out on a world full of greatness. It hurts me to think about everything I am missing out on and will miss out on. Art is part of life and I believe that having a life full of artistic encounters is the making a full happy life, it is wisdom, peace, and passion. In the end our whole world is art so we might as well actually get everything from it that we can. If I have learned anything in recent times, it is that I need to look at life through a camera lens, take something ordinary and find the extraordinary in it. Having to push myself to find the beauty in pictures I once found silly made me realize that I have to do that with everything. Just because it seems simple doesn’t mean that it really is. If photography can do this for me, the all of the other arts out there probably have some amazing things to do in my life.