I’ve never really been the person who pulls out a camera and asks everyone to get together for a photo. In fact, I would avoid the camera lens at much as possible, leaving my camera roll rather empty for years. But that started to change when I got to college. I knew I intended to graduate early before even stepping foot on campus and was terrified that the years would fly by with little for me to look back on. So I decided to try and photograph as much as I could from my college experience before it ends.
While I did want more photos, taking pictures of things around me was not at the top of priority list when I started college. It was hard to remember that I could snap a picture at any time due to the busyness of first entering college. Moments that would have made for beautiful pictures would pass by and I even caught myself saying, “I wish I took a photo of that earlier.” There were times when I wondered if I could ever figure out how to photograph parts of my life naturally. Being a campus ambassador actually helped me get started on this journey. On days when I would go up the Campanile, I began to instinctively take photos of the view, capturing the Golden Gate Bridge by the sunset and even some of the construction on campus. Many of my first photos in Berkeley were of the campus, foods, and drinks that I tried. Although it was nice to look back and remember how good everything tasted, I didn’t want endless pictures of food and coffee on my phone; I wanted images that reflected the ups and downs of college life.
As the weeks rolled on in my first semester at Berkeley, I started to realize how fun taking pictures could be. My friends and I would take photos of each other at random moments. Sometimes it was because someone wore a cute outfit or because one of us made a silly face. My camera roll slowly began filling up with the photos I took and those that others sent me. While I still don’t consider myself a habitual photographer, I’ve become much more intentional about taking photos on days and events that I do want to remember. When I meet up with friends or take trips together, the pictures tend to come naturally as we all want to capture a snippet of our limited time together. With their help I realized that memorializing my college years wasn’t a burdensome endeavor to take on, but something I could do with others by building megabytes of photos and videos to look back at.
Thinking back to where I started, my original feelings of stress truly weren’t necessary. While having photos of myself, friends, and things I’ve seen help me remember my time in college, I’ve realized that I’m able to remember a lot simply from the photos and documents I naturally save every day. There are dozens of lecture slides from my classes saved in my Google Drive and hundreds of screenshots with important deadlines and information that consumed a good while of my time. Although all the photographs, live photos, and videos let me relive small parts of my college experience, I’ve found that even the “boring” photos make for great pieces of nostalgia that give me a chance to reflect on the life I’ve made in Berkeley.