Images from my world: Sometimes as photographers we get so focused on assignments and working to keep the bills payed that we stop looking at our on lives for the images that one day will bring memories to us.
We forget the reason that we originally picked up a camera, which at least to me was to capture rectangles of my life. I loved the quick drawing of the things that surrounded me, as Henry Cartier Bresson would say in his later years that was what photography was for him. He was known for capturing the “decisive moment”, that moment that wouldn’t been seen ever again. Those flickers of light where everything was in place to frame that second that later would become eternal for the memory.
Life goes fast, maybe as fast as the speed of light. You blink and it’s gone, no turning back there is no rewind, no pause button in life. It is constant the movement forward, never backwards. The only thing that we have that comes close to be able to pause this spinning into the future is our memories of past events. But as we grow older it becomes harder to tap into those memories, the layers build up and it’s not as easy as before to recall our youth, our life moments.
That is the greatness of photography, like nothing else in the world it is wonderful tool, medium to use for recording those flickers of light full of details. Those moments that will not be here again. I will use the image above to illustrate this point: It is a simple image of three young men waiting to leave for Church on a Sunday afternoon like many other Sunday afternoons. Yet this moment has not been repeated again and it might not they way things have turn out. Now you might say what does it matter, well to one of these young man every time that he will see this image it will remind him of that afternoon when he gave a Bible study to Tarzan as he is called because of his long hair. It will remind him of the burden that he felt in his heart to reach out and share something that is the most important thing in his life. When he is old and in that place in his life that God has for him, he can recall this little moment by just looking at this simple image that his dad took of him and his friends.
I guess as I get older what once I took for granted is coming under a new light. Wisdom, I don’t know if that is what it is or maybe experiences that are driving me to not allow life to pass by without clicking away at it.
More to come later…
Jorge
Amen.
Word. I feel ya.
Good reminder – I guess the busier our photography businesses get, the less time we have for taking other image which may be as or more fulfilling to take.
I hear you. Lately I’ve really been having trouble photographing for my self. I’ve been so consumed with shoots for clients. This is a nice reminder of the importance of that.
I completely agree. I document as many moments in my personal life for that very reason. To never forget.
Thank you for this post. Beautiful words about capturing those too easily forgotten moments in our lives.
Lovely image. Beautiful philosophy.
Hear, hear. 🙂