“An Adventure Love Story”
I came up with the idea to write about how my boyfriend (Justin) and I ended up meeting and all the small and big adventures that we have had the opportunity to do together which include places in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Wyoming, and California. We both love most of the same things which is hard to find. We love to be outdoors as much as we can in the summertime and wintertime. Most of the activities we do is hiking, kayaking, snowboarding, mountain biking, camping, fishing, and just spending time together.
The form and content work together because it is in a specific order over the period of time that we have been together and the photos that I take show the beauty of the outdoors and how two people can really connect with one another. I chose to do it in this specific order because I wanted to share some of the places that we went to that I personally like the best and are my favorite and show our journey as we continue to explore more and more places together.
Creating this photo essay was fun because it is a way of showing our story together and how much fun we can have together without technology 24/7. Not many people have the opportunity to travel and go different places and I just want to share with those people who may not have the time or resources to do so. The only part I found challenging was which photos to choose to put into my photo essay because I love to take multiple pictures and angles of the landscape or setting so finding that right one is hard. I overcame this challenge by asking Justin’s opinion on which photos he liked the best as well and working together to tell our story and making suggestions.
Some of the artistic choices that I made while constructing this project was most of the photos I took using my phone and used and app called Aviary to edit them and really bring out the colors. I honestly think I take better photos on my phone than my boyfriend’s good Nikon camera, but I haven’t had the time to play with the settings and use any photo editing apps on my laptop. I choose to use Google Slides for my photo essay because I like the layout that makes it look like a picture book with a brief but detailed description and because most of the other technology is used on MAC and I am not familiar enough with it and I personally have windows on my laptop.
This kind of storytelling is unique because a photo can really show or tell someone’s story and you can really connect on a personal level even with a very short description to explain the photo. Most people wouldn’t think of this way to tell a story because it is not the traditional “book” to be published into a story. The advantages this medium does offer is a different way of how images and their relationships can tell a story without typing out a traditional 100+ page “book” like I mentioned earlier. There are many advantages to doing it this way and one is the access that many people online would have to share from person to person whether it be on a Blog, Instagram, or Facebook page.
I learned that there are many ways to create a photo essay that I have never known before and that hopefully my story can be influential to someone else who may not have a boyfriend or girlfriend or someone who doesn’t have the time to enjoy the outdoors. I want people to realize to appreciate the little things no matter how small they are and don’t take that for granted. More and more landmarks and historical places are disappearing because today’s society just doesn’t care anymore. I know many people think graffiti as a bad or negative thing and I do think there is a time and place for it like in the picture of the rocks, that isn’t hurting anything, and it adds color and uniqueness and some of the artwork of the paint is beautiful. Now unless you are doing a mural, painting on buildings and in popular places is where it is a bad thing.
If you would like to hear more about “our story” about how we first meet and more details about the places mentioned you can click this link to read more and I hope you enjoyed “Our Story”.
