Category — LBaburov

Howard Greenberg, who was once a student studying psychology, was one of the many people who were influenced by the emergence of photography. He had a few friends who were involved in it and they convinced him to join the circle. His parents brought him his first camera from Japan and he began snapping away.

Before cameras, when one stumbled across something of genuine beauty, he or she would stop and stare, admiring it until it was time to move on. If one was a skilled artist, he or she would perhaps dedicate months, if not years, to capturing the sight. Still photography changed the way artists would capture the world and the way people began to see it. Suddenly, beautiful scenes became a part of history through film.

The way Howard Greenberg passionately talked about his career as a gallery curator revealed how much he really loved what he did. The stories he told us about the photographs and their history wasn’t foreign to me – I am very passionate about photography myself and I could relate to much of what he said. What shocked me the most was how suddenly his life turned around – from the medical world to the world of photography.

Listening to Mr. Greenberg speak about his life and how he was pulled into the world of photography made me realize how we’re all only a picture, painting, book, or movie away from changing our entire career path and understand what we really want to do in life. I, personally, relate to his story quite a bit because just yesterday I decided to change my major from finance to engineering – all because of one story I read on the internet. The butterfly effect: how a butterfly can flap its wings at one end of an open field and cause a storm on the other side due to wind exponentiation.

In my house, we have six family members, but it usually seems to be around 7 or 8 most of the time because of the guests that come over; and I don’t necessarily mean come over for dinner.. One time, we had a family friend from Kaliningrad come over to stay for an entire summer. Our guest’s name was Slava. Slava came to America on a foreign exchange program and his goal that summer was to have as much fun and make as much money as possible. He immediately started partying and looking for jobs. Slava wasn’t exactly what a parent would call an “ideal influence” because, although he was 20, he loved to drink alcohol a lot (It’s legal in Russia at that age). Kaliningrad is an enclave of Russia and Slava fit the Russian drinking stereotype quite well. Once he found a job at the local McDonalds, he started going out at night with his colleagues. My parents, who were devastated at how this “adult” acted and behaved were shocked and devastated at how someone from such an intelligent family could be so.. well.. unintelligent… I, personally, had a great time that summer introducing Slava to my friends and I honestly think that despite the hardships he faced in a brand new country, he loved being in America that summer more than he ever did in his home country.

It was of no surprise to me when my parents announced during the summer of 2007 that the family was taking a trip out of the country. The surprise came when they told me that the destination was Armenia. I, by nationality, am Armenian. I was 14 when we had this conversation and had never visited my home country before in my life. I was anxious, excited, and scared all at the same time – comparable to how most kids feel about starting a new life in a new school.

Armenia is the type of country into which you can arrive unannounced with no money in your pocket and receive food and housing within the hour. Everyone there treats each other like family. My family, which did announce that it was arriving, was greeted by what seemed like the entire airport garage full of cars. To avoid offending anyone, my brother, mother, father, and I all got into different cars with our distant relatives.

The entire trip was one gigantic cultural encounter that opened my eyes to a myriad of new experiences; but one specific encounter that I will never forget in my life was one related to fuel.

Armenia is a developing country that does not have a very wealthy population. The economy is still primarily based on agriculture and the technology is sub-par. This was clearly evident the minute you stepped outside of the airport and this encounter solidified every assumption I had made about the country’s industry.

We all know that a car needs some sort of fuel to run and some of us even know the different kinds of fuel: gasoline, diesel, and electricity. One day, when a relative was driving around my brother, father, and me, he stated that he needed gas. This statement would have flown right past us if he used the Russian word “benzene” for gas. He, however, used the Russian word “gas.” We asked him what he meant and he explained that most cars in Armenia ran on gas – natural gas. To give you an understanding of what image this evoked in our minds, imagine hooking up your car to your gas stove, cranking up the dial to “high” and waiting a few minutes for the gas to flow into a special container in your car. Our visions became reality when we arrived at the special “gas” station 5 miles from the center of the city.

This entire time my mind has been obsessing over the idea of how Armenians, as well as other nationalities that occupy developing nations, have to constantly come up with, what to us seem to be ingenious, ways to overcome obstacles in life that we never even face. Compressing natural gas in a canister and rerouting the entire fuel system to run on it to save a few dollars every month seemed absurd to us; but for them, there was no way to afford a car without doing it.

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