Photographs and Memories (by Ven Paolo Valenzuela)
PDI's Youngblood column never fails to make me happy... This goes out to all photo enthusiasts, be it camwhore or cam-shy...
Photographs and memories
By Ven Paolo Valenzuela
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:11:00 01/30/2009
Filed Under: Photography, Human Interest
Cameras are fun and I applaud whoever invented these little devices. To create something that captures a moment in time and allows people to re-live that memory forever (unless, of course, everybody forgets what it was all about or the picture fades away) is a tremendous achievement.
People are amusing, too. They keep creating things that make life easier - and lazier. Interestingly, we don’t notice it at all. We are so engrossed with technology that it has become a way of life. Technology dictates what one can do and what one cannot do. But even if we have allowed technology to become a dictator, we still manage to keep some of our humanity.
Taking pictures is something we won’t give up easily. When summoned to pose for a picture, we try to look our best, we give our best smile, and we strive to show the world the best that we can be - all in a single shot.
With digital photography, the number of shots that can be taken has increased exponentially, but does it mean that our opportunities for reliving the past have increased as well?
Ironically, the essence of taking a picture diminishes as we are given the capacity to take more pictures. When we don’t like what we see on the tiny screen showing the captured moment, we delete it. When we like it, we pose for another shot as if we can travel through time. Some people even take a series of their own pictures, in the same or slightly different pose as if they can’t get enough of themselves. If a picture was worth a thousand words once, now it is worth a few megabytes of electronic data ready to be discarded when no longer needed.
In my free time, or when I am just bored, I try to amuse myself by observing people. Once, inside a mall in Baguio City, I saw a group of high school girls taking turns posing for pictures. They were all giggling and smiling as their cameras flashed endlessly. They looked at the shots they had taken, saved the pictures they wanted, deleted those they didn’t like and then posed again. However, amid all their smiles and giggles, I could not sense any importance they were giving to the pictures. They just seemed to be happy to be with each other. Though it was nice to feel their sense of belonging, I could not help but think that the pictures they had taken were just like cream to their coffee, giving added flavor, but ultimately not as important as the coffee itself. I was actually wondering if the pictures they had taken could speak for themselves.
Then I looked at another scene unfolding not far from where the girls were having fun. A father was taking a picture of his son using an old analog camera (the ones that use film). He asked his son to pose and smile for the camera, and then he took his picture. They left smiling and holding each other’s hands.
What was amazing was the moment immediately after the father took the picture. It all happened in a flash, but I noticed the father contemplating the moment he had just captured, and the simple smile he had on his face made the picture even more meaningful. It was as if the old, obsolete camera had enabled the father to do something newer cameras could not do, which was to capture a memory that could be described by mere words.
Cameras were invented because people want to relive the past captured by one brief moment in time. Modern technology now allows us to capture more than just a single moment. But we take this for granted, as if we had the power to change what has been done and erase the past. We snap photos mindlessly, totally forgetting that they used to be special. We have forgotten what the inventor of the camera wanted it to do, which was to enable people to breathe life into their memories.
Thousands of years ago, people dreamed of immortalizing their lives. They drew and painted what they saw. They told each other tales, wrote them down and drew pictures based on these stories. That was the beginning of written history.
Then people learned how to manipulate light, and snapped the first photographs. They left us pictures of the past, and the knowledge to capture the present. We then advanced our knowledge to a level where the triumphs of the past seemed to be very ordinary. What memory of us will we leave to the next generation? What emotions do we want future generations to feel when they remember us? Do we want to leave a ton of pictures that mean nothing or a few photographs that tell our stories well?
When I take pictures, I make it a point to capture something that glistens with emotion. When I take a picture of a man and his dog or a beautiful sunset, I tell myself to be mindful that the memory being captured cannot be repeated and no one can alter the fact that it happened. Time waits for no one. The emotions you felt while playing with your pet, getting an award, or enjoying the romantic scenery with a loved one, you can only burn in your memory - and pictures help bring forth old feelings. But we cannot reenact exactly what happened in the past, and so we cannot experience truly the same emotion twice.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are we willing to pay to relive a memory?
Ven Paolo B. Valenzuela, 20, is a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences junior at the University of the Philippines in Baguio City.