Avatar Abenad, The Photo Bender

Somewhere around 2019, right before COVID 19, I went out with my friends. We took so many pictures even before we started eating but while my friends were busily talking and laughing about Lord knows what, I was manipulating the pictures we took. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. All I knew was that my actions were making the pictures nicer than the original.

“Do this picture for me, do that one for me” My friends didn’t let my ears rest after they saw what I was doing and as I said, I didn’t really know how I got to that final result. I was already using iOS so I used that as an opportunity to explore the picture editing tools. I just wanted to know how I got my final result and what the photo editing hype on iphone was all about.

Years later, I realized I actually had a thing for picture manipulation and it wasnt only editing pictures of people. The very first time I did colour isolation, I showed it to all my friends. It legit felt like I applied certain powers to the picture. I was so happy at the result and even more prouder when people asked me how I did it. You mean I’m cool and you want to learn how to be cool? Hehe.

The other time I pulled some magic tricks to remove unwanted items in a picture, I was over the moon. I knew it wasn’t a new thing and I had alreyseen a lot of people do it but they all did it with particular tools (expensive ones for that matter) and just one click. Out of a little determination and so much curiosity, I opened InShot and by the time I realized, I had done what I never thought could be done with so many clicks.

I did a lot of back and forth that day trying to find what exactly I was looking for and it was funny how at a point, I even got confused because I kept on duplicating the pictures for the tryouts. But that’s the thing with trying to equip yourself with digital skills. You never get it on first try.

It took a lot of experimentation to get to where I am now. There are days I actually do terrible work and end up laughing at myself in the process. But I understand Rome wasn’t built in a day and as far as I’m concerned, I’ll strive till I become very good at manipulating all kinds of pictures.