Photography – Raleigh
When I was young, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a writer, a painter. I wanted to tell a story so captivating that it moved people in ways that they couldn't fully explain. I struggled and fought against every failure to reach those goals, but I was caught by the misconception that you can only pursue one. My view was narrow, and I let myself be limited to that misconception. I was wrong. Passion can't be limited by the walls you put up, because eventually the walls will burst open, the dam broken, and you will finally come to the realization that you can. You. Can. So many people put up walls around their passion, around the thing they truly love and desire. What would you call those walls? Doubt. Guilt. Fear. Restrictions and limitations that we set upon ourselves or we let others put on us. It was this moment, this burst of passion and desire, that made me finally pursue the things that I truly desired, and, ya know, I could have just written an ordinary bio. I could have told you that I'm 23, that I've lived in North Carolina all my life. I could have simplified my story, saying that I fell in love with the arts as a kid, that photography called to me as I got older, but that wouldn't be MY story. It would speak nothing to the struggles I faced, the doubts that I let restrict my passions, the LIFE I built behind brick walls. Once I let go of all those misconceptions, all those doubts and fears, that’s when I truly found the happiness I had been missing this whole time. Photography for me, it's all about the moment, that brief moment of time you capture in an instant. You don't breathe life into pictures, you capture the life that's there, that's always been there. Nature has a way of quieting one’s soul, planting it into the ground, and nourishing it to its roots. It can provide the tranquility that you need. It can wake you up. Nature has always been there for us, and I see it as my job to remind us of that. My name is Stephanie Hommel, and this is my story.