Photographs are tricky. I used to be into photography. It was definitely a hobby, as my camera was always with me. I would stop along the road to take a picture of a field or a sunset or I'd trek thru my parent's neighborhood thru the snow. It went like this for a year or two, but then it stopped. I'm not sure exactly why it did. Maybe it was just a phase that my friends and I went thru and once one of us started losing interest, we all did. It could also have to do with the fact that lenses are expensive and I didn't have money to upgrade my equipment.
I remember saying that it was because I couldn't find that beauty anymore. Whatever it was that I found in photography was no longer there. I had captured everything I wanted to and couldn't find anything else. I had already walked thru my neighborhood three or four times and gone out around the city with my friends. I'd taken pictures of my grandma's huge amount of flowers more than once. I felt like I was in a rut - I needed to branch out and take pictures that were different from every other one I had taken. Well, I never really did and my camera gathered dust. Once in awhile I would pull it out and take horrible shots because I didn't remember how to use it. My sister's graduation was a casualty of that.
But the trip to Florida inspired me. Not in some gradios way, but enough to take it. I took pictures of the guys playing - and it took me a little while to remember lighting settings and technics I had learned along the way. But I couldn't wait for the ocean. I could take pictures of the ocean forever. I have hundreds of pictures of flowers and clouds that all look the same to anyone but me.So today, I went thru a hundred or two of the four hundred pictures I took last week. I haven't touched the band pictures; mostly, I looked at the pictures that I went looking for. I came up with about five, which are the ones lining this post.
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Back to my original statement: Photographs are tricky. There is so much emotion and nostalgia attached to them. Even if there was love - it can bring pain. They are reminders of what once was and how different it is now. Those pictures are easier to not see; but to hide or burn. There is something to be said for remembering and learning from the past, but there's also something to trying to forget it completely.Even going thru these few, I remember what I thought about out on the beach that morning. Being alone and - for once - enjoying it. Seeing how big and powerful this world is and how small and weak I am. Feeling the ocean breeze and mist on my face. I was at peace that morning as the sun rose and I felt its warmth on my face.
Looking back from today, there's a big difference. I feel these walls closing in on me and all I can find to hold them back is smaller than I am wide. Six weeks...I think I can handle that. And then I can breath, take a step back, and figure this thing out. If only it'd be that easy. At least it will be the break that I've needed for eight months - which I only got a taste of this past week.
Suffered a swift defeat.
I'll endure countless repeats.
The gift of memory's an awful curse.
With age it just gets much worse.
