Ever since I was young, I've been made to abide and follow a certain method - unfortunately so widely accepted by society - on how to live my life correctly. It's been conditioned into my mind even more by my parents that one should go to school and graduate with some sort of qualification, work, work, work, move up the career ladder, buy a house, get married, have kids, work, work, work, retire, die.
I feel as though I was born to work and make a living but my heart says otherwise. I was born to live, as in really live. I want to carry my feet across the land and explore the little wonders of life. I want to see life, feel life, and be life. I want to capture beauty in my photographs and inspire people to dream.
Whenever I'm having a conversation with my friends, more often than not the question of 'How's university?' will weave itself into there. I always reply with the same answer, 'I hate it.' I hate it because my essays and my writings don't stem from passion. I hate it because I feel as though I don't belong amongst the groups of studious peers. I hate it because I don't want to listen to another teacher tell me about life. University just isn't for me. My grades have suffered and dropped with every month that goes by but my passion for taking photos has bloomed.
I get disheartened every time my mother tells me to stop dreaming, to get my head out of the clouds and put it back into my textbooks. I cringe every time my father would remind me for the umpteenth time that his only wish is for me to finish university with flying colours and get a top job earning lots of money. And it frustrates me. It frustrates me even more when I can't even express how I feel towards this mainly because of the language barrier and because they wouldn't accept what my dreams in life are.
It was recently that I started to fall in love with photography. My youth has been hard and heavy. It is ugly and often filled with tears that was made out of frustration and anger. I am a bird with clipped wings, caged up in a place where my parents have set many limitations. I try to fly, but I can't. I am a dreamer amongst the traditions embedded deep in my parents' minds. But although I feel trapped inside these four brick walls, I found love which made me find beauty in things people often miss - and I captured this beauty with a camera and I loved it. Beauty was forever frozen in a little frame that I could always look back on.
Capturing life is a way for me to speak in a place where I am mute. I want to take photographs forever.
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