DocAndersen
It is a journey, a wander, as we consider the images or pictures that represent a captured moment. The second, someone pressed the shutter of a camera or now touched the screen of their cellphone to put that moment into digital memory. To save, that instance, for at least the time that phone is alive. Many pictures disappear digitally over time. Some because they are not backed up. Some because they are forgotten, some because they are never saved. But for the moment of the shutter, they all exist. Sometimes we tag the photo in our memories. Sometimes we do not. The tag sometimes is added much later. But then the value of context becomes more critical than anything else about the picture.
Who took the picture? What were they thinking? Is that image something relevant to the photographer, or just a moment? That disconnection can be harmful. When the photographer passes away or leaves your life, and you can’t ask the questions anymore. Why this picture? Why this flower or for a moment why this gathering of people? Those are the questions that come to the mind as we sit and wait. Sometimes on the back of the picture, there are tags. The picture here is of Aunt X, with her new husband. Perhaps that was Aunt X’s fourth or fifth husband. Like baseball cards, Aunt X collects husbands. Or perhaps, it was the 4th birthday of the little one that joined the family.
All of them are moments. Take the time to place the tags at the least in your mind. At best on paper or typewritten and stored with the pictures. The memories will fade over time. What we seek, what we hold, and who we are and are remains critical. We are more than the two-dimensional image in front of us. We are more than simply what is on the Kodak paper. We are the compilation of more than the tags. Take a moment to wander your tickets. Find the ones that mean the most to you, and share those with another person. Find the edges of the memory. Map the world that the memory shares and put that out for someone else to see and hear.
This work is Copyright DocAndersen. Any resemblance to people real or fictional in this piece is accidental (unless explicitly mentioned by name.)
