Recently I had an assignment in my documentary photography class to
photograph the ten things I would miss most if I had to leave Earth forever. I would have to show these pictures to aliens who had
no concept of our planet, and I wouldn't be able to explain them with words. The pictures would have to convey my connection with the subject and it's significance in my life. On the flip side, I would be able to show this planet in any way I wanted. Since the aliens would have no idea what Earth was truly like, I could make it look how I wanted to remember it, not necessarily how it truly was. I took this concept and ran with it. I ended up shooting the whole project with my phone, using an app I downloaded called FXcamera. The app is supposed to make the pictures look like they were taken with a Holga...they don't, really, but they do look pretty cool and dreamlike...more how I wish the world looked, and how it looks when I think about it, rather than how it really is. It was actually totally freeing to shoot with a 2 megapixel cellphone camera with no control over aperture, focus, shutter speed etc etc. It's certainly not something I would do every day, but for the purposes of this project the lack of control over the camera really let me clear my head and focus on the mood and subject of the pictures.
