I love taking pictures.  I love the technology, I love the feel of the camera, the expression of a client seeing a great shot, seeing “The Shot” when I open up the files on my computer, and the laugh of my wife when she knows that I got a shot of her making that really funny expression before she realized I had the camera out.

Love it all.

My folks went on holiday a couple of weeks ago and I stopped by their place to get the mail check the house, etc.  I ended up pulling out a photo album and looking through for some images from elementary or high school to share with ex-classmates on facebook.  Luckily my parents are festidious about organizing pictures, the albums are ordered by years, photos have month and year and are labelled, it’s great.

As I was flipping through the pages two things happened.  The first was an hour slipped away in what felt like a few minutes.  The second was I was struck at just how often capturing an image is so much about the time and the place and so little about the things that I’ve been caring about so much lately.  Composition, photoshopping out skin blemishes or worrying if there is a strand of hair out of place, or if the white balance is correct or not.

That just doesn’t matter.  It’s about having an image that you can look at and think “oh wow that’s me and look at how funny the clothes were and how awesome I thought I was”.  It’s about looking back and having an image of you and your first girlfriend or boyfriend posing by your very first car and being brought back in a split second to how your hair was long and how she smelled and how that car seemed like a magic van that could transport you far away and out of the world of school and homework and bullies even though it was just a junker that the neighbor gave you.

It’s about seeing an image of your parents and remembering what they looked like when their hair wasn’t white and they stood up a little straighter but how really, deep down they haven’t changed at all.  When you look at that polaroid picture that’s yellowing on the edges and you have that feeling of being zapped back in time.

That’s what’s important.  That’s what matters.

That’s why you have those pictures on your computer or printed out, not because they had great composition, or the white balance is perfect, or the photographer made you look really great, but that they are a connection to the past and they reminded you of people or places or events that had significance to you, even if they were the most inconsequencial of things, even if you’re the only one who knows why that picture gives you a little smile or makes you tear up a little bit.

That’s the power of photography.  That’s what I love.  That’s what I’m trying to share.

(Proof I was always a crazy cat man)