Old photos started out as new photos. We look into our old albums (or the albums of friends who force theirs on us) and peer back into time. That's why photography is so special, because it creates a kind of real magic, breaking through the limits of the restrictions imposed on us by the arrow of time.
We sometimes (or at least I do) don't realize the importance of getting good photos (or any photos at all) during our ordinary lives. It is for this reason that I have no pictures of some of my best friends from years ago, for example. At the time it was "now", and it didn't seem as if now could be so long ago and far away in the unreachable past. How I wish I'd had a camera with me on so many of those happy occasions.
One of those old friends was originally from Virginia. She had left much of her family behind there when she and her mother and brother had moved West. But a few years after I'd met her, she had finally decided it was time to get married and met someone her family introduced her to, an Australian chap who was residing in Virginia but had come all the way to the West coast to meet her. The plan was to go back to Virgina and get married there. I managed one afternoon, in the last weeks before she was to go, to get her to finally take a photo with myself and another friend. We had done a lot of things together, including several business ventures, and I realized that in all that time, not once had we ever taken a single photo anywhere. We had her mother snap the picture. Then I wished her well with her new life, and she asked me about my girlfriend. I said we were getting along fine, but had no plans to marry as yet.
Then I told her to make sure to find a good Richmond wedding photographer (she had family in that city, and was planning to be near her own folks for the wedding, though her husband to be was from the Norfolk area) because though she might take lightly the idea of preserving her memories of everyday life, for something truly special, it was essential to not only have photos, but to get a professional to do the job and do it right. Ron Stiers is such an award winning photographer, and looking at his site, you can see why. I don't know what it is about photography. Some people make it look so easy, but put a camera in just anyone's hands and you'll see the difference immediately between someone who makes photography an art form and someone who simply snaps a quick picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If the post you are commenting on is more than 30 days old, your comment will have to await approval before being published. Rest assured, however, that as long as it is not spam, it will be published in due time.