A Glimpse of Cleveland

I am Catherine McLoughlin, a teenage photographer. I come from a great and loving family, who are a great encouragement for me and inspire me to try my hardest at everything that I do, even if it is a great challenge. I have been blessed with many gifts and talents, and I want to use all of them, no matter how odd or unique, to better myself and others. Most of my daily life consists of school, sports, family, and friends, all of which are places to create my photography. It is important for me to take my camera in my purse everywhere I go because a photograph may be waiting to be taken in places I may not expect.

My philosophy for photography is that any object can make a great photograph. Photography is a way to capture one, single, unique moment of time in a picture that will remain for years and years. I like using different techniques with lighting, angling, and positioning to create distinct photos. I also like when photos do not look completely edited, but rather natural and appealing. I wish that everyone who views my photos will be able to relate to some object or aspect in my photo, creating a unique emotion. I take photos to create memories, capture scenes of significance, and simply to have fun.

For my final project, I chose to take a unique approach. Rather than simply snapping shots of objects, I wanted to create a specific direction to make the set of photos have a clear theme. My project consists of nine photos taken in downtown Cleveland. Each of these photos is designed to convey a letter so that when lined up the nine photos would represent and spell out the word ‘C L E V E L A N D.’ I loved the challenge of this project! I went downtown and looked at many cool places hoping to find letters of the alphabet in places that people would not expect. My photos range from churches such as the picture with the three pillars, to landscapes such as the ‘V’ created by a forked tree, to the inside of tower city that created my ‘D.’ Eventually, I was able to find the perfect nine photos for this project that all show aspects of Cleveland.

My project stays true to my philosophy in many ways. Each of my photos has a different emotion, which is created by the varying scenes and colors. Also, the lighting is both distinct and different in the photos because they were taken over a period of several days. The angles were intentionally different in order to get the best and most creative view of each subject and to create diversity. I am hoping that people will look at my photos and be able to tell that the photos are not heavily edited and that they are able to show off the beauty Cleveland has to offer. This project came out better than I had envisioned and was a fun way to express my photographic style and philosophy.