James Muraki
Do What You Love
I never had a love in Photography. To be honest, when I was in high school down in Tempe, I always thought photography was pretty stupid. Like who would want to walk around with a camera taking photos? My love was sports, so usually I was the one that photographers would be taking pictures of.
Everything changed when I went back to Oahu, Hawaii and got a GoPro. I took my first picture with it, and there it was, my love for Photography. I bought my first camera and once it was time for college, I changed my major from Civil Engineering to Photography and never looked back. You know, people close to me would tell me that I am making a mistake and I should pick a different career path because I wouldn’t make money in photography and etc.. I’ve heard it all, but when you are in love with something, you shouldn’t let what people say stop you.
For this project, I decided to put my two loves together and showcase them the best way I possibly could. Sometimes when life sucks and need an escape, I turn to snowboarding and photography. It’s the only way I can be myself and let everything drift away enough to gain my happiness back. There’s no better feeling than the flow and rhythm I get when I am snowboarding, so I thought, why stop at just myself? I turned to close friends and even random people that I met at the mountain to help them showcase their love for the sport just as I do. The excitement in their faces as I showed them the images of themselves carving or landing the jump they have been working on has brought me nothing but joy these last few weeks of working on the project. As long as I can keep bringing joy and excitement to people’s faces, I will continue to be a photographer because that’s all that matters. This is only the start of something bigger to come.
