When you think about it, and I mean really think about it, it’s quite amazing what goes into capturing an image and what the implications of this process are.
To begin with, it’s so incredibly unlikely that all the elements of a meaningful moment will come together in precisely the right way, that it moves you to capture the photograph. Think about some of these probabilities: All those little photons of light had to travel millions of miles from the sun to the Earth avoiding all the potential obstacles of space. Then add the exceptionally low probability of the Sun and Earth arranging in this precise way. Now that these billions of light particles have actually made it to Earth, think about how unlikely it is that they fell upon the scene before you, in just the right way – and at the very moment you happened to be there. The temperature feels right and the wind moves through the trees just enough. And in this moment, everything is in its right place. It feels perfect.
That moment will never exist again. No one will ever see it the way you saw it. And no one will every truly know exactly how you felt at that instant in time. Even someone standing right next to you would not experience it the same way.
As a photographer, you are moved to capture this moment either to keep it for yourself to enjoy again later, or to share it with others who couldn’t be there to experience it with you. Relying on a wealth of technical knowledge, the camera is adjusted to capture the moment as you feel it. We are fortunate as photographers to be able to capture moments to share with others. The ultimate irony is that we don’t actually get to experience that moment ourselves. The precise instant that you press the shutter, the mirror in the camera moves up and obscures your view of the scene. The camera steals that moment from you. The billions of little photons that would otherwise grace your eyes are intercepted by the camera and converted into ones and zeros… hardly the romantic flood of emotions you would have felt while enjoying the unobscured scene before you. That precise instant in time becomes something that nobody will ever experience. The best we can hope for as photographers is that our somewhat “incomplete” two dimensional analog of the experience will be sufficient to evoke some semblance of those same feelings we felt when we were there.
As photographers, we have the gift of sight, the power to immortalize, and the capacity to evoke a wide range of emotions in others and ourselves… but these come at a price. Whether you’re capturing an image of your sweetheart while on vacation, preserving an emotional moment at a wedding, or simply absorbing life, pause to think about what is being given up when the shutter is clicked.
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