Nailea Meneses
@lea_lost
Creative director based in the US
I studied Graphic Design in college and I am a Creative Director for my company so an appreciation for art and composition is something that is ingrained in me. Photography has always been one of my interests and the idea of capturing moments in time and eternalizing them fascinates me so it’s no surprise that now it’s a major part of my life. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m always framing up a shot in my mind. With regard to travel… that was never really an opportunity I had. I grew up in foster care, I bounced around from home to home for a vast majority of my childhood. It was difficult not feeling like I belonged or had a home. As a child I didn’t really have a say in my upbringing but I took notice of how I wanted to live. What opportunities/ experiences I wanted for myself and through a combination of luck and determination I somehow stumbled onto this path. I think we are all fighting for something. I am a big believer in the idea that if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen.
"You just need to make it a priority. Will it always be convenient, or easy? Definitely not, but those challenges are a part of the journey. That applies to travel, to life, to everything."
Looking back, I had a very traditional idea of what “home” meant but through my travels I’ve discovered home can be anywhere. Now I seize every opportunity I can to make travel a possibility; travel contributes to my happiness on many levels so I try to pursue that as much as possible. As a person travel makes me feel much more interconnected with the world and its people. Perspective is a pillar of photography and of life and with each place I travel to, I am giving myself another facet of that. It has helped me realize that we are tiny in the scope of things. It’s easy to get carried away with our day to day problems but being aware of the vastness of this planet we’re on really helps put things into perspective.
As a creative, travel provides me with the opportunity to capture a location’s essence in a unique and personal way through photography. And it’s photography that challenges me to view things in more than just one way, to think about a scene from different points of view and that can be applied to life as well. It’s easy to default to your own point of view because it’s what we know but photography has pushed me to ask, “well what does this look like from this angle” or “how does my subject view this.” These questions help me to take on different positions myself, changing compositions and thinking about the effect a certain angle may have on others when looking at the photo.
"I want my audience to get a sense of how small the subject is compared to the landscape, so I would say that stylistically I try to convey scale."
It’s a major component of my photographs. And to increase the impact of the photo on the viewer, I often try to purposefully leave my face out of the photo and keep things minimalistic. I think it’s easier for the viewer to envision themselves as the subject if there isn’t specificity to the person in the photo, and from my experience it’s much easier to get a sense of scale if there’s less involved. What I want the audience to focus on is always very clear and I try to bring that out. In terms of editing, one trick that I feel has improved my work is consistency.
"Keeping the general tones and sizing of my photographs more or less the same. It really helps give my work a sense of cohesion."
"Even though each person has a unique interpretation of a photo, I do think that people understand what I try to convey with my photo."
I can’t speak for my audience of course but if anything at all, I feel that at least I plant a seed, touching upon something. Maybe the reaction is something as simple as “wow, that looks cool, I want to go there” but even then for me anyhow, it is a nudge into the right direction. My goal is to encourage people to go out and have these experiences for themselves. To motivate people to take an interest in our planet and hopefully by doing so they themselves will feel a need to protect it. Of course I am often ‘audience’ myself as well.
"The community of photographers that I follow are such a huge inspiration and a lot of times I look at a photograph and try to figure out what they try to convey, what I can read in the image."
When I see something better, different, it usually motivates me to go out and try to do something similar. I am always learning from others and I am very receptive to anyone that may reach out to me as well. I love interacting with other photographers, it’s fascinating how a group of ten people can take a picture of the same thing and yet the final product will vary. For me this art form is an opportunity to allow others to view the world as you see it. How they perceive it will be different for everyone, but I believe that when someone takes the time to look at a photo they can surely catch something from what you as a photographer tried to convey.
"What I particularly wish is people to really marvel at how incredible our planet is."
Travel allowed me to see places that are hard to imagine to be existing when you don’t get to travel much. Any place I get to travel to surprises me with a unique beauty and each place is special but one place I keep going back to is Switzerland. Putting my nerdiness on display right now, it reminds me of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings, haha. Everything there is so beautiful, and everything – from their cities to their hiking trails – is well-kept, clean, and maintained. But generally I appreciate each country, each place. Whether I look out at the ocean or a mountainside, I am just marveling at how gorgeous the world can be, feeling an intense happiness going through my body.
"During my travels, I’m just filled with gratitude that I am able to experience all this."
"Travel has opened my mind to different cultures, countries, and to the diversity of beauty."
Opening my mind has made me much more receptive to different experiences. When it comes to travel, especially when going somewhere you’ve never been before, there’s always a bit of anxiety in the unknown but the more you do it the more self confident you become. You find that you are capable of anything you put your mind to but most importantly, you find that people are the same more or less anywhere you go. When traveling more, you’ll find yourself making connections with all sorts of different people, getting to the core of human beings when getting to know them better. It all comes back to perspective for me and I can usually try to put myself in their shoes. I think that is something that I’ve gained from travel and I think that is something we all should learn to better understand each other and living more peacefully together, crossing borders or not.
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