078. Box Of Memories
Time goes by so quick. Today, I want to talk about taking pictures.
Recently I heard that relationship we have with experiences, is being affected by our ability to experience them first through social media or images a thousand times over before ever seeing the real thing in real life.
I imagine that’s true, however, I imagine stories too had a similar effect.
I remember my first camera. It was one of those cameras that has managed to make it’s way back into the mainstream. Mine vanished, and I loved that camera. I took everywhere. My little travel companion. I think on that camera, images of lions. I remember the pictures I took with that camera, not all of them, but a few live in a little box of memories.
I suppose like my like the magic black box I call my phone, for as long as I am in possession of that little box memories, whenever I need to call up the memory of the images I took with that camera, I will have those photographs near and dear.
Having had moved around a lot, I have learnt that holding onto possessions can be quite tough. Overtime, little things, even big things make their ways elsewhere. Then all that is left is what you have left. However, the fact remains, at some point we will build museums of all our journeys through life and we will call them our homes. A select few pieces will remain to show our journey through life and the parts we wish to exhibit and maintain.
Before I returned from my sojourn, I had grown a little tired of the requirement to find a moment worthy to photograph. With each day of The Full Send, I made a reason to go outdoors. I wanted The Full Send to exhibit living. To exhibit exploration, wonder. Moments found on the journey along the way. Though, the daily requirement began to intrude on my ability to find peace and escape in the moment.
I have gone through periods of camera readiness to periods where I completely for such a craft as photography exists. I feel as though, currently, I am in a period where I do not feel the need, let alone the want, to take a photograph, unless I feel provoked by the moment to the point where I wish to capture it but, even then, the rush for the camera, the focusing, the adjusting – all the attention pulled from one moment, and directed to the attempt to capture a moment that will gone be gone. I feel no pull toward it, but, it is only something I have committed to for a little longer.
Lately, I have noticed I quite enjoy the experience of knowing that I have missed that photograph and I am never going to have the opportunity to look at it again. It puts quite a pressure on the moment at hand. The moment has to be what it has be, and it will be what it will be, and you will only ever have your memory to capture what it was.
I miss looking at things. Just looking because I want to see them, not because I wonder if it will make a cool cover for my Full Send article. So, I look forward to that little liberation. Just being, and not wondering if this moment will live in perpetuity. Capturing the few I am willing and able to capable, perhaps letting them live in print, and making space for them in my little box of memories.
Alas, it could all get lost and all I will be left with is the memories I replayed in my mind, and held dear.
Dear reader, I hope you had a beautiful day, and I hope you are back here tomorrow for another day of trying our best. 😊
