I'm currently attending school at Brigham Young University - Idaho. This Winter 2020 semester, I took a photography class. This has been by far my favorite class I've taken here at BYUI! It helped me see my potential and skills as a photographer and gave me the confidence to choose to major in photography. Our last assignment in the class was to create a "Final Series" in which we choose a theme and create photographs and an artists statement surrounding that theme.
Below is my final series, entitled "Look Up, Look Out."
This series was shot in the midst of a last-minute road trip from Rexburg Idaho, to my home in Hamilton Virginia. As my mom and I drove across the country, I sat in the passenger seat, attentive and alert to every passing tree, hill, shape, and barn. Our 32 hours on the road passed very quickly as I was taking in and documenting the beauty around me, amazed at the possibility of it existing in such a wide variety from one end of the United States coast to the other. All photos were taken with my Canon 5d Mark IV and a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. I’ve written a poem to describe the meaning of this series. It is a reminder to take time to capture and appreciate all those precious moments in our lives that would otherwise go unnoticed as we speed through them, especially in this hard time of pandemic and uncertainty.
Look Up, Look Out
by Rachel Schoeny
The world around comes crashing down;
As fevers rise and coughs disown,
As earthquakes shake and poverties bend.
Please don’t let this be the trend.
For in the midst of all this ache,
Such little steps we must each take.
To all of my dear friends I plea:
Look up, look out, through mortality,
Please find the joys of God’s good soul
He’s placed around to fill the hole,
Where sorrows build and fat tears rend
Look up, look out, I beg thee, friend.
As life before us rushes past
Monotony of mundane tasks,
Are interrupted, if they’re watched,
By beauteous treasures at no cost.
Look up, look out, for peace to find
For little joys that ease the mind.
Here in the ‘scapes of mortality,
Look up, look out, for there He’ll be.
