Feature Story

 

The Birth of a Photographer

 

“Photography is the encapsulation of the beauty within moments, feelings, or emotions… It is just like painting with light” That is the definition of the word Photography for the blooming entrepreneur Joel del Olmo. At his age of 17, he has already found his passion and guidance towards his future as his enjoyment lays on the ambition to become a professional, recognized photographer. Though his passion spurred almost instantaneously after getting introduced into this pixeled world, his mind created long-term projects, goals to accomplish, and tasks to fulfill. He understood that doing nothing would take him nowhere and so he began his journey. Step by step.

It was just another day like any other in 2018 when del Olmo stopped to look at his surroundings. To realize the details that only got glimpses and were never something to be mesmerized from. What he saw was; Beauty. Stories. Emotions… Art. “It was just there, waiting for me to see it and I was so blind.” It was then that his perception of the world changed completely. Such a view pushed del Olmo to become eager to capture it. To preserve it. To appreciate it and have others appreciate it too. And so, to do so, he appealed to photography. “Many others do the same thing that I want to do so why not give it a try?”

On September the twelfth of 2018, del Olmo uploads his first photo to his Instagram account sent_og  “I just started doing it, for the sake of art”  and so he did and nobody was able to stop him from keep on doing it. As time passed by, he started to develop his skills as a picture taker and with them, his ambitions for more. More photos, more ideas to bring into reality, more things to show, more art to make. He then starts developing certain sets of photos with a theme in mind like; heart break, adventure, peace, and his most recent one Memento Mori. This last one is solemnly focused on the meaning of its name mainly accepted as ‘to remember that you have to die’ but greatly emphasized by
del Olmo’s interpretation of such concept which leads him into showcasing moments of happiness and melancholy hence (according to him) “they serve well in order to remember the reasons we live in an ending race filled with moody and vintage colors.”

From his very first photo to even his last set of images del Olmo’s pictures have always mostly been styled as portraits. “I’d like to try something else, something new for me, like… abstract photography” not just that, del Olmo’s ambition is far greater than it seems to be. He is now planning to “create a film where the ending of a relationship between a traditional high school couple is compared by seeing the way in which each member takes it”  accentuating how the female individual showcases strength and independence of others but is still a warm human. This project is “still under the planning process” which is expected to finish somewhere between July and august of this year so that the project could begin in August.

Even though it is his passion and obsession to live, del Olmo alluded to the idea of how being a photographer “would be rough because of how the social platforms allow almost anyone to become a photographer creating less and less need for photographers” but in the end, that is what he loves and so, he will “keep on chasing the intangible pieces of art that go through my mind until I spit them into reality”