Despite how remembering how something you do every day all came to be sounds so easy, it's really not. Photography is something I become in touch with every day, whether it's simply thinking about it, or actually capturing a memory with my camera physically. What is photography to me? Capturing memories sums it up in my words.

The day I got into photography has faded away in my memory. I don't think that it all happened overnight. Someone who pushed it on was my grandma, and myself. My grandma started by giving me her old camera, and I was hooked on taking pictures of things and turning them into masterpieces. After spending time as a kid growing up having my heart so deep into art, photography was just another extension of art for me. When I started to save up and bought myself a professional camera, I think my grandma was amazed at how far my little adventure had gone, because it's still an adventure to me to this day.

I remember the day my boyfriend and I were getting ready to go out of town to do some shopping, and my plans were to come back with my own camera, and my grandma didn't think I'd actually do it.

"That's a lot of money, Leslie. Just think about that.", she told me.

"Well, you've gotta spend money to make money!" I responded, and from there I think my grandma knew I was serious about turning this "adventure" into a career. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

The decision of calling my work “Downpour photography” was well thought out, and after sketching what felt like at least a hundred logo choices, the name stuck in my mind. The name had a ring to it that suited me so well.

The idea comes from my favorite song, released on the album “Pretty Odd” by Panic! At The Disco, on March 21st, 2008. In January of 2009, the band released it as a single. I have loved this song since I’ve heard it. The songs meaning shined through its’ lyrics and spoke to me. I understood what the writers (Ryan Ross & Brendon Urie) were trying to get across.

The song displays a message that a lot of people in this world today, need to think about and understand. And that’s greed.

“If all our life is but a dream.. Fantastic posing greed, then we should feed out jewelry to the sea. For diamonds do appear to be, just like broken glass to me.” – Northern Downpour

The above lyric is from the song, and it explains that no matter how much you think a diamond (Just an example, it could be about anything of great value) is worth, no matter how much money, you still can’t take it with you when you go (die). Our lives are nothing but simply a dream, that one day we will wake up from. We shouldn’t worry about diamonds, gold, silver, fancy cars, big houses, because they really are worthless. At least, that’s what the song explains, And unfortunately, not everyone is going to believe that one day.
“Hey Moon, please forget to fall down. Hey Moon, don’t you go down.” –Northern Downpour

I think that this lyric symbolizes something I think of a lot of nights. Those nights where you just don’t want another day to come, you just feel like sleeping and not waking up. Sometimes, indeed that’s how I feel: Not wanting to wake up. As depressing as it sounds, it’s not meant to come off like that. I mean it as in, my dreams are better than reality most of the time. Don’t you ever feel like that? Anything can happen in your dreams.

To sum up things about Northern Downpour, my point is that it’s my favorite song. It’s my happy song that I can listen to when I need to. Naming something that I want to do for the rest of my life after the song couldn’t fit any better. Northern Downpour & Photography are the same thing for me: escaping from reality. When I listen to northern Downpour, it’s as if I’m in a dream, and when I am taking photographs, I’m in a dream, both making me feel like I am indeed: escaping from reality.