This is why hobbies are important (part 2)

I am sure many of you didn’t really pay attention to a post a couple of weeks back about hobbies with the parenthetical “part 1.” And if you did then congratulations! Your loyalty is to be rewarded with a new post entitled “part 2.” It was sloppy workmanship on my behalf to leave you waiting so long, but the secret is that my “part 2” was incredibly trite and couldn’t top the first part. But luckily this one is decent enough for me to talk about.

I’ve already mentioned my love for hobbies. I believe they are necessary so you don’t go insane with a case of the cray-crays. My first part to this post was about my adorable 7-year-old self and my adoration of what I deemed college would be like. Click here if you want to go back and read it. But now that I’m theoretically grown up, it’s time to say what my new hobby is. Of course it’s still writing, but I love taking pictures.

However, I’m just okay at it. Which makes me really mad. You don’t just love something to have it not love you back (meaning, it doesn’t turn out the way you want). Am I right, Britney Spears? I got an A in my high school photo class; but when I tried my hand at it in college I was only okay. I have a hard time settling for mediocrity, which is difficult when you’re so stubbornly type-A at times.

That’s why I don’t settle for only being type-A, I just have to be type-B as well. So I’d like to think I’m a mixture. Anyway, in my college class, my type-A just took over way too much. So I’ve decided with the new camera I recently purchased, I wouldn’t take the photos so by the book as I did last time. Some of my favorite shots I took involved a technique called “light painting.” Light painting is when you get a flashlight, or some form of light, and move it in such a way that it creates shapes and designs. Then you hold down your shutter on your camera and it creates a cool picture.

I took light painting shots last time because I thought they were cool. I had no idea that they were an actual thing. So when my bestie, Maggie, brought it to my attention, we had to try it. We enlisted the help of my friend, Robert, to draw designs. We had everything from stars to designs that cannot be mentioned on this quasi-family-friendly blog. Here are some of my favorites from that night:

So even if you feel like you’re just average at something you love, don’t let that deter you from doing it. Who cares if it’s not up to some tightly wound professor who dresses in all black and thinks she’s some artistic genius and you aren’t because you take “average” photos and are just “okay” in Photoshop (sorry, ranting)? Don’t do it to please Ms. “Don’t-Take-Another-Shot-Using-That-Model,” do it because you love it.