THINGS LOST & FOUND

December 3, 2011 THINGS LOST & FOUND

I’m currently very very close to being halfway through my third year of college. I’m nearly 21.

When I was 15, my dad surprised my siblings and I with fairly large checks in lieu of standard Christmas presents because it had been a good year for him at work and he wanted to share his success with his family. He also know checks were the smart way to go because all the Lo’s have a reputation for being somewhat opinionated, making gift-giving quite difficult in this family.

I had been playing around with my dad’s fatty point and shoot for a while (which was cutting edge at the time), and had recently developed an interest and joy in taking action photos at track meets. So, with the rise of DSLR’s beginning around that time, I decided to invest my share of the Lo family money in a D40x kit. It was love from that moment on.

Ask anyone that went to my high school—I was THAT annoying girl who ALWAYS had a camera attached to her. At school, in track, at friends’ houses, I never put my camera down. I slowly built up a small but respectable collection of camera gear including my still favorite 18-200mm, a speedlight, a macro lens, and a few more. Eventually it paid off because my friend who was involved in yearbook took notice of my track shots and asked me if she could use them in the Guinness Book of World Record’s largest high school yearbook. I agreed.

The next year I was an actual yearbook photographer, and I was shortly thereafter promoted to Photo Editor. My pictures were praised at the annual yearbook convention, my friend (who was now EIC) tells me.

It all ended with a bang at the end of my senior year of high school. I went on two unforgettable trips, one around Europe, and the other around Indonesia, and I saw and captured things that I never thought I would. I even carried my 20+ pound camera shoulder bag all the way up to the peak of a mountain that neighbors the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. That was dedication. That was love.

In college, though, things slowed down. I had to focus on making friends and carrying around a big camera all the time didn’t seem like it would make a good first impression, after all, people already have a lot of preconceived notions about what all the Asian kids at Cal are going to be like. I didn’t want to feed into the stereotypes. I hardly took any pictures that year, though I still fiddled around.

Last year was the worst. I got heavily into this blog, and food photography (which isn’t SO interesting, I hate to admit). Everything else fell by the wayside of school and studying and I didn’t want to lug around my camera when I didn’t have to. I took a black and white 35mm class for a couple months, but that took up so much time it really ended up stifling my shooting even more.

So the point of all of this is: sometime in the last year, my passion for photography seemed to fizzle out. I just didn’t care about it anymore.

Until last night.
I got to shoot at the LA Riots show (which was co-sponsored by SUPERB, my love) and I got some photos that really reminded me why I used to love this hobby so much. It’s really truly an amazing thing to be able to capture a moment in time in a way that reflects something personal about the photographer. I get to remember things how I want to. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to debate, but I really love it.

In two weeks, I will be shooting my first wedding professionally with a girl I met in that photo class last year, Nyx. She’s also from San Pedro, which is a pretty cool coincidence. I’m really excited…it’s so intensely gratifying to be paid to do something you love and would absolutely do for free. It’s the same great feeling I got when I had my Steve Aoki photo published in that magazine over the summer.

So anyway, here are a few of my favorites from last night. It’s good to be back!