Can One Photo walk Help You Tick Something Off Your Bucket List?
-life isn’t beautiful!!
It was the phase right after my graduation. I was applying for different jobs, exploring opportunities, and figuring out what to do next. I wanted to go out, hang out, and try something different, but there was one small problem: I had no friends to go with. So, I spent most of my time at home, not knowing that life had something unexpected waiting for me.
The days were just passing by. I would spend hours scrolling through my phone, put it down, pick it up again, as a loop. That was it.
Nothing particularly exciting was happening.
So, How Did I End Up at My First Photo Walk?
Story behind this…..
My brother had this habit of waking up early on Sundays and going out somewhere. Meanwhile, I would still be comfortably lying in my bed.
But one day, he came to me and said, “You wanted to go & try pottery, right? We, Shutter Society, are going for a photo walk. Would you like to join us?” That’s it.
I was like, “What’s the time?”
He said, “It’s early morning. You should be ready by 5 a.m.”
I was like, “Ughhh.” But then I thought, okay, fine. After all, trying new things was on my bucket list.
And just like that, I agreed to go. I didn’t know it then, but that one decision was going to introduce me to something I would slowly start loving.
The First Thing I Noticed
Crowd!! definitely people. I have never really been comfortable in crowded places, and here I was, surrounded by a group of people I didn’t even know.
To make things more interesting, I knew almost nothing about photography. I didn’t have a camera. I just had my Samsung phone with me. I was simply there to see what this whole photo walk was about.
Wait… I Never Noticed This Before
Then my brother showed me something interesting on my phone.
Unfortunately, I lost that first picture, but here’s another one I took using those settings!
And the funniest part? I even taught my cousin how to use them too… haha!
I had been using the same phone for so long, and I didn’t even know my camera could do that.
Look, these are called Pro Video and Pro mode in your camera settings.” I was like, “Wow. That tiny discovery made me a little more curious.
At This Point, My Curiosity About Photography Started
Throughout the photowalk, I started observing people and how they took photographs. I paid attention to what they were looking at and noticed how different people could stand in the same place yet find completely different things worth photographing.
And somewhere along the way, I started understanding the difference between seeing and looking.
We see things all the time. But looking is different. Looking makes you stop. Observing makes you notice. And photography makes you capture that moment.
Looking → Observing → Capturing.
For the first time, I started realizing that there was beauty in things I would normally walk past without a second thought.
I took a few pictures that day. when I looked back at them later, some were good, and some were… definitely not good, and that’s okay. It was my first time.
I wasn’t trying to become a photographer that day. I was just curious. but something I was seeing. I started looking at others photographs. I started noticing light, people, little details, and moments that I might have ignored before.
I lost the photographs I took that day, but here’s one from my gallery that I captured after that one walk. That’s how it all started.
One photo walk became a small interest. That small interest slowly became curiosity. And that curiosity slowly became something I wanted to explore more. But eventually, I realized something.
Photography Wasn’t Really About the Camera
It was about what photography was teaching me beyond photography. and there was a lot.
It taught me patience. It taught me observation. It taught me to appreciate ordinary moments.
It taught me that imperfections could also be beautiful.
But more than anything, I think photography slowly taught me something I didn’t know I needed to learn:
To pause, To stop scrolling, To stop rushing, To actually look at what was around me. To notice the light falling on a wall, To notice someone’s expression. To notice a street I had probably walked through many times before. To notice the little things that were always there, but that I had never really paid attention to.
Life Isn’t Beautiful… Actually, Maybe life isn’t beautiful.
Maybe we just don’t stop long enough to notice it.
Photography didn’t make life beautiful. It simply made me look. It made me realize that beauty isn’t always found in big moments, beautiful places, or perfect photographs.
Sometimes it’s hidden in ordinary streets, imperfect frames, random people, quiet mornings, unexpected conversations, and the little things we usually overlook.
And That First Photo Walk…
Looking back, my first photo walk was more than just a morning spent taking pictures.
I went there knowing almost nothing about photography, carrying nothing more than my phone and a little curiosity. I came back with a different way of looking at things.
And surprisingly, I don’t feel as much as uncomfortable in crowded places as I used to. Maybe there’s still a little fear, but now I can handle it.
And then there is Shutter Society.
What I initially thought would be just a group of people coming together for a photo walk and then saying goodbye turned out to be something much more.
It wasn’t just a community. Somehow, these people became more like friends, more like family.
That first photo walk didn’t just introduce me to photography.
It introduced me to people, new experiences, a new way of observing the world, and perhaps most importantly, a version of myself that had been waiting to come out of that house arrest. Maybe life was always beautiful.
