A camera is a tool for capturing images. Those images can be many things – frozen moments in time, representations of reality, a singular perspective. From the days when sitting for a photograph took hours, to our present day world of instant gratification, photographs are a huge part of our lives.
To me, photographs are part memory holder, part souvenir, part record-keepr, part artistic endeavour… Through them I can reflect on the past, places I have been, people I have shared my life with, things I saw or felt and thought worth trying to capture.
The most memorable times in my life have been recorded faithfully. A year spent in Europe resulted in a detailed album with annotations and captions. So what does it mean when there are gaps in my photographic record? When I feel down, I tend not to record anything. Those periods are reflected only in the images taken by others, if Ishow up at all. This is understandable.
But what about those times when I was gloriously, deliriously happy, but have no pictures of that time? The absence of images makes it seem like a hazy memory, almost as if I imagined the whole thing. How is it that having pictures, even one photograph can make an experience seem all the more real? As though I need proof that I was really there.
Maybe that is also why sometimes, when I get into a dark mood, I feel inclined (though I try really hard to not succumb) to destroy photographs. As if that simple act can clear my head, erase memories I wish I didn’t have, remove all trace of a painful experience.
But when the day comes that I can look back without pain, I often wish I did have that little glossy rectangle, its two dimensions conjuring up emotions and feelings from a mysterious intangible place.