J(me)

Hello World!,

Welcome to the inaugural post of my photography blog! My name is Jamie Wong, and I am currently a sophomore at Cornell University pursuing a B.S. in Operations Research and Engineering; my true passion, however, is photography––sorry mom. Inspired by my dad and his cracked Rebel XT (circa 2005), I began my journey of chasing good lighting and repeating the phrase "chin-down, please" during my early high school years.

I was often assigned projects for which I had to collect older pictures of myself; thus, I frequently had the excuse to flip through albums and albums of my childhood pictures without appearing too narcissistic. With every flipping session, I became increasingly enthralled by how the sight of every picture could fill me up with a warm, distant memory. These pictures were not just beautiful because I was in them (kidding), but also because in every photo I could see the methodical process behind every angle chosen, every subject positioning. I loved that I could see the world through someone else's eyes, and as an aspiring creator I began to appreciate so much more the beauty of God's creation.

Thus, I picked up the now primitive Rebel XT and started taking photos of anything and everything in sight, slowly but surely learning my way around the camera from many YouTube videos and supportive friends. There were many times when rejection and criticism caused me to set down my camera for indefinite periods of time, but now my camera is too expensive to set down. All jokes aside, I have grown so much in resilience and adaptability during this chasing of my passion. I have loved every second of every second I've captured; the mere act of compiling eight old photos for this blog post brought up so many conversations with old friends about past memories and inside jokes. I would like to thank my parents for funding my expensive hobby, Jenny Gao for teaching me everything I need to know, and God for placing beautiful people in my life who daily show me where true beauty lies. And thank you, dear reader, for stepping into this leg of my photography journey; I hope you too may find a passion as I have and CHASE IT no matter what anyone (even your mother) says!

Love,

Jamie Wong