A photographer's confession

Finding old pictures is an extremely rewarding event. Well, at least it is for me, a girl in love with the feeling of nostalgia and deep reflections on life. When I picked up photography in 2008 my intention was purely to create good-looking and artistic photographs. Photographs that I could promote and become known for. I didn't think for one second that the photographs that I'd eventually be most proud of would be the candid ones: the real, the unedited, the photographs that I snapped without much thought. I didn't think that it would be these photographs that would give me a heartache to look at, years after they were taken. Today I graduated high school. I don't really know what much to say about this fact because I haven't been able to sort out my feelings about it just yet. I don't really know what it even means, to have graduated. I am aware of what it probably means to others since all these years we've been emotionally built up, by our mentors and teachers, for this moment; the supposed "freeing" moment of going into the "real world". I don't know if I quite agree with that thought. The world I lived in all these years felt pretty "real" to me. The point that I'm trying to get to is that today, whatever significance it's suppose to hold and whatever significance it will hold for me in the future, is just another day to remember. I have the pictures to prove that it happened. I have the pictures that I will be able to look back to in the years to come. Well, that's just it. How is this day, my big graduation day, any different from any other day? Each present moment is always a little bit dreamy.

It's there and it's honest, but it's typically not until we look back and remember it that it becomes truly accessible and real. Why else would we miss a moment in the past? Why else is it difficult to continually live in the present? These are not rhetorical questions, I simply ask them because I don't know their answers. The photographs on this post are two of the many photographs that I took on a normal day back in March of 2010. Over two years ago. I remember I was at my aunt's house which was located in front of a small park. My cousin, Emily, and I were at the park, poking at bugs and doing much of nothing. It was a perfectly normal day, not boring but not spectacular either. For some reason, as I was looking back at these photographs, I started to long for that moment. I felt a pull in my heart, the wanting to go back in time and relive that day, that month, that year. Of course, pining for the past is sometimes hurtful and unhealthy, so as I recognized this I immediately stopped myself. It was just a day. Just an ordinary day. Maybe two years from now I'll look back at my graduation photos and think the same way. I'll remember it, I'll miss it, I'll get over it. But in between those actions, I'll have some space to reflect and to learn. Maybe it will be then that I'll be able to grasp what graduation really meant. Maybe I'll finally be able to figure it out. For now it's just a day that is nearing its end and I don't feel the need to stop it from doing so. I long for tomorrow and the many more days to come, the many more memories I'll be able to make more accessible with the click of a shutter.

Hmm. Maybe another day I'll remember exactly what it was that I wanted to say with all this. Maybe not. Either way, I do have one last thing to state:  I am thankful for the blessed day in which I picked up a camera.