About Me!
Hi, I'm Garrett Diegnan, and I am currently a senior in high school . Aside from my clubs and schoolwork, I have lots of different interests. Over the past few months I have gotten really interested in politics and statistics. Some of the projects I'm currently working on include: analyzing the correlation between different social and economic conditions and how this affects how states vote in elections, and analyzing different factors into what makes the strongest nations in the world, and how their political systems are set up. Besides politics, I have also used some of my increased time at home to improve my cooking abilities, and have been able to try out lots of new recipes recently, including croissants, ramen, sourdough bread, and more.
I have been a big sports fan for almost my entire life. My dad was raised in Massachusetts, so I grew up as a fan of all the Boston sports teams, and have really gotten into watching basketball recently. During quarantine, I was able to build a basketball hoop with my dad and brother, and have also spent the past several months improving my basketball skills. In addition to watching and playing sports, I am also really into music. I have played piano for about eleven years now, and also have a very diverse music taste. I have started amassing my own vinyl collection, partly inherited from my parents, but I also stream a lot of music as well, with genres including hip-hop, alternative/experimental rap, classic rock, indie, jazz, and many more.
Another large aspect of my life is outdoorsmanship and enjoying nature. Every summer I go to summer camp in the Adirondacks for two weeks. I also enjoy the challenge of summiting mountains. I have hiked seven different Adirondack high peaks and around 15-20 in total. I like hiking, camping, kayaking, rock climbing, white water rafting, backpacking, and more. Being able to enjoy nature has significantly influenced my photography style.
I am a founding member of my school's Photography Club, and a co-software leader for our online magazine Capture CHS. You can read more about my interest in photography below.
My Photography Journey
My interest in photography began at a young age. My family got a digital camera when I was very young, and we would bring it on every trip we went on. At my elementary school, there were offerings to do "enrichments" which were essentially clubs, and in third grade, I took a photography enrichment, which gave me my first chance to start trying out the family camera.
In middle school, my family got a newer digital camera, and I began taking it on family trips and taking pictures. While I never took any photography classes or lessons, my photography skills gradually started to improve, and I started to take pictures more often. In 8th grade, I bought a book called Read this If You Want to Take Great Photographs which was the first time I began to think of photography in a different way, and I started to understand things I could change to improve my photography skills.
That book also started talking about shutter speeds and aperture sizes and ISO, and all these different features I realized my family camera didn't have. I was able to convince my parents to get me a newer digital camera, and as a combined Christmas and birthday present in 10th grade, I received a brand new Canon camera, with all the features I had been looking for. I began experimenting with these new settings, and trying out my new camera on different trips.
During my sophomore year, I took two photography classes in school, which began to take my understanding and love for photography to another level. For the first two quarters, I took a traditional photography class, where I got to try out film photography and take part in the entire film and photo development process. I also began getting a better understanding of all these new settings on my camera, and began to learn different photography techniques and strategies for improving my photographs. During the second half of the year I took a digital photography class, which as my photography teacher explains, "goes into the why of photography". I began trying more experimental projects (which you can see under the projects section), as well as improving my ability to operate my digital camera, as well as getting to try out Photoshop and other photo editing tools.
Over the many years that I have become interested in photography, my abilities have improved and evolved. And with that, my style and photography subjects have changed with it as well. Although I'm not very photogenic myself (as you can tell from my picture above), I have become interested in portraits, street photography, nature photography, and many other styles. Combining my love of photography, as well as the skills I have learned from various Computer Science classes, including the Web Design, HTML, and CSS circuit I took with General Assembly this summer, I decided to code my own website from scratch to share all my photographs. On this site, you can see how my photography has evolved over time. If you want to read up on how to navigate this site, read below, or just feel free to browse around different sections of the website!
How to Navigate This Site
The home page is your standard landing page. It features a picture of a mustang that I photographed in a field in the Catskills, NY, and you can also check out a few of my other featured photos as well. Under the Gallery page, you can check out all of my favorite photos that I have taken all in one place. Under the Collections page, it will sort my work into different categories. These categories will either be different locations I have been able to photograph, or different projects I did for my photography classes in school, or even different categories of photography, such as portraits. Lastly the About page that you just read features different information about me personally. If you scroll to the very bottom of the site, you can also see a brief footer note about the website, and will also be able to navigate the site from down there as well! (P.S. this site is best viewed on desktop!)