“The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Ever since I was a child, I remember looking through family photo albums and being fascinated by pictures of my younger parents, grandparents, my sisters, and even myself. I can even recall the exact location in our house where the albums were stored – in the side table between the couch and fireplace in our basement. This is such a vivid memory for me because it was something I continued enjoy doing throughout my childhood. I never got bored of looking at the same photographs over and over again. The same could still be said for me today, but in addition to just looking at photographs, I love taking them. My computer and hard-drive backups exceed 40,000 photos. You might say that it’s a bit of an obsession. At every moment I had a camera with me, documenting my life and experiences. Digital technology has luckily made this much easier for me. While most of my photographs are stored on my computer, I have created several photo albums of our travels. These albums become my favourite and most treasured souvenirs from our vacations.
So why is photography so important for me? I think it relates to the fact that I’m a history teacher and obviously have a great appreciation for the past. Photographs are examples of primary evidence, and help reveal so many things about a time period to the person viewing them. When I looked at the family photos it felt like I was being transported back into the past. The photographs are memories froze in time. Even if I didn’t remember the picture being taken, looking at the younger version of myself allowed me to feel as if I did.
Some people may think it’s weird that I post so many pictures of myself, or even get the feeling that I’m egotistical, but that is far from the truth. I see my blog as a scrapbook or an online photo album of my life. It isn’t just photography as an art form, but as a way to preserve who I was at certain place in time. After I am gone, the photographs will still remain. It’s as if I can become immortal through the pictures. And it feels that way when I look at photos of my loved ones who have passed. The memory in my mind unfortunately fades, but the photos I have bring them back to life. I’m definitely fortunate to have a husband who loves photography as much as me. He too loves to capture the moment, and has a great eye for framing a photograph. It could also possibly be one of the reasons why I have continued to be passionate about photography today.
Now, the question remains, will future generations see the same value in photographs when there are so many of them today? Part of what made the old pictures I had special was the fact there were so few of them. And unfortunately, at times I feels as if apps like Instagram devalue photographs making them seem almost unimportant. We scroll so quickly through a feed that we don’t always appreciate the story that is being told in the pictures.
In the end, it’s important that we still remember to live in the moment and to not be too focused on taking the perfect photograph, but there is something magical about having that picture in the end.
