Photography: Making Magic out of Reality

“I use photography to make the world more magical,” says Tieranni Brim, a rising sophomore at Huston-Tillotson University and longtime photographer. 

Tieranni’s passion for photography started during her freshman year at Carnegie Vanguard High School when her mom randomly bought her a camera for Christmas. Inspired by her favorite book, I Wrote This for You by Iain S. Thomas, she decided to take up photography to try and tell a story with pictures. She took a photography class her sophomore year of high school to learn the more technical aspects of photography, like aperture and shutter speed. To learn how to edit and artistically manipulate photos, she utilized the Internet and various free editing programs. Photography quickly became her way of interpreting what’s around her. “Photography is my way of seeing the most beautiful parts in people or in random, everyday objects.”
 

A candid caught of E. Hoskins, a student at Carnegie Vanguard High School. (Photo: Tieranni Brim) 

Whether it’s a flower floating in a pond or a candid of a person laughing or looking off into the distance, Tieranni manages to capture a quiet beauty and liveliness in both people and nature, her two favorite photo subjects. She also enjoys taking photos of anything that plays with or distorts light, such as fireworks. “They look like galaxies, it’s like I’m taking photos of space, almost.” 

Her favorite photo changes “every now and then,” but right now, it’s one she took of a model in a student-run fashion show at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston because of all the details in the dress. Photography is her way of noticing subtleties, showing people aspects of their personality they might not have seen before, and creating an experience out of the mundane. It’s clear that every photo Tieranni takes is meant to evoke some sense of joy and happiness.

People riding a Ferris Wheel at the Houston Rodeo. (Photo: Tieranni Brim) 

Her university doesn’t offer any photography classes, but she still does it as a hobby and would be open to pursuing it as a career, since it shapes the way she sees things. Tieranni says that photography helps her appreciate what’s around her, and it’s clear that with her art, she manages to transform the world into something that holds onto reality but is magical at the same time. “Photos easily show the essence of things because they were taken in ‘the moment’ - the ‘right here, right now’ of the subject. Photos are a mix of reality and magic.” Other mediums might be able to reproduce the reality of a subject, but they can’t quite recreate the “magic” that Tieranni is describing. 

A photo of Shini Meyer-Wang taken in Galveston, TX. (Photo: Tieranni Brim) 

“The particular placement and movement of a subject was real and it may never happen again, but photography can preserve it.” With photos, Tieranni can freeze a moment in time, stare at it a little bit longer, and let herself - as well as others - notice things they hadn’t before. In the process of doing so, we too can find the magic in reality.