step 33: photography

A friend asked me today whether I love photography for the actual act of taking photos, a desire to preserve whatever it is I’m capturing, or the chance to do something with my photos. Since he’s on vacation with very limited internet and won’t be reading this anytime soon, I think it’s okay that I rehash share my answer with everyone here.

It’s easier to first discuss doing something with photography. The most important thing you can do with photography is, of course, to share with everyone whatever wonders and mysteries and gripping stories one finds — which can also be done through writing. This is no small matter. Particularly for someone who loves all things media, I’m highly interesting in the ways and the significance of sharing. But sharing, I think, is an aspect that comes second to, or at least comes after or follows, the other two reasons raised.

For a long time, I’ve realized that photography embodies a life philosophy for me. Both preserving a picture and actually taking it speak to some of the ways I approach the world.

As I was saying to my friend, everything in life is so transient. The deepest look, the most brilliant foliage, and the loveliest hug all disappear in an instant, fading away even in our memories as time passes. Blessed with the gift of witnessing such sights, there’s value in capturing a single, fascinating or beautiful moment and freezing it forever. This is part of hoarding that which evidences you have actually lived — something else writing can also accomplish.

But I also love the act of taking — or rather, finding — the photo. It’s first about actually seeing things. About noticing a funny groove in a large wedge of stone, about picking out a little boy and his grandmother from a crowd, about not missing a single building on a street. Then it’s about the way you see these things — how the groove resembles a heart, how close the boy holds his companions hand, how the cozy restaurant with white linens and delicate vases sparkles in a gritty city.

In instances like this, it’s about picking out the beauty in everything. In others, it’s about being patient, like waiting for the clouds to pass so the sun throws formidable shadows in the glittering snow. And sometimes, it’s about being in the right place at the right time, and recognizing that you are, so you press your shutter button the moment a duck takes a drink from a puddle on a college campus field.

This is why I love photography. Becuase this is what I think we must do in life. The years that we add under our belts don’t mean much if we can’t find the beauty in them. And if we don’t stop for the precious moments — or worse, don’t realize we’ve been blessed by their gift — then what, really, will we have?

~ by Christine on August 14, 2009.