Well it’s not that I was planning on writing another post. I’ve been really trying to limit my extra computer time over the holidays so that they are really holidays. But then again, the only people that this time is stealing from is the family, but I’ve been recruited to update iPods and rip discs, so while the disc rips in at 14-18x, I’ve got time… and that there are 40 to do, it might be a while.
So here is what I’ve been thinking over the last few holiday days… There is a Nikon D80 commercial that is playing in Canada right now that talks about photography being about capturing fleeting moments blah blah blah… but is that all really blah blah blah?? Well I don’t think so. At least not after this weekend for the next little while. The thing about photography, especially event or candid photography, is that it is does just that, it captures moments. These moments are fleeting and to capture “just that moment” where there is a cute smile or a look or whatever is what people become amazed at and that is what they call everyone over to see. I’d seen this happen, as you all have as well, but what clued me in?
This weekend, I spent some time with my nephew and a good chunk of the community at a rite of passage event. It was at the later, that in some way I was able to get some, however infinitesimal, appreciation for news photographers and war journalists. You see, the rite of passage that I was asked to photograph for my friends is both emotional and potentially traumatic (the Babri (Gugurati term, aka choula, in Hindi) is the ritual shaving or shearing of a child’s head to “cut it’s spiritual connection to the devine”). Through the vantage point of being able to poke my nose into the front row through the lens, I saw in my photographic eye fleeting moments of absolute anguish on the face of the people involved in the ceremony. There were some shots that I could have taken, but they would have been very painful to see later on. The ones that I pulled the trigger on were just before or just after the painful shot. After the hard to watch segment, there were also moments of incredible tenderness that also occurred only for a few seconds that are likely to be cherished. Then later in the day, there were moments, watching my nephew play that I saw the same things. If I was taking video, I would have been able to get the story of the event, but the feeling that is captured in the flash of the shutter is something that I was just chomping at the bit to show off. I’m really starting to feel that video merely tells a version of the story that is manipulated, but a photo (assuming that it’s also not altered) is pure, relying on empathy of the participants of the event at the time and the viewer of the moment to be interpreted into a story. So the short of all that… the “chimping” that people do after they take a picture is to view the event that they could never have without the camera’s help. Yeah it’s kinda funny when you have the live baby or event going on, but with the event captured that you would never have even thought to exist, that is truly cool to take a few extra moments to gawk at.
Ok, so that is the fleeting observation and reflection, but what about the prolonged moments? Well that is something that I reflected on, in part, after previous vacations, but here is something more to add. When you don’t have to worry about that merciless march of the clock, then you have time to enjoy all the little nuances of spending time with family and friends. So during the holidays, when so many have the time to take a break, you can spend the five minutes to watch the young child amaze at a new toy (watching my nephew with his new monkey that is almost his size was completely priceless, as was his exploring his new set of peek-a-blocks – by eating them of course. Watching him truly made the holiday magical. My wife and I were thinking that even though you can’t compare a honeymoon at Christmas in WDW to time off the clock with a baby, it truly is the social connections that can make any event great or miserable. I can’t wait to take my nephew and eventually my own children to Disneyland or spend any other time “off the clock”, enjoying time stretching infinity.
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