Presently Photographing The Past

The rise of Facebook, My Space, and other networking sites that incorporate and almost necessitate frequent phototaking, has helped us all become unusually tied to photographs. By making photos more important, Facebook has encouraged some of us to become better photographers. I'm convinced that more SLRs have been sold to laymen because of Facebook than because of any other factor.

Facebook has certainly convinced me that photography is important, and beautiful photography is all the better. And so I have bought myself an expensive camera and learned to find unique angles that capture the essence of my subject. Of course, the fact that I have a baby now gives me a totally legitimate reason to want to capture moments and essences - it has also fortified my fascination with photography.

Here's the downside though: I noticed during my trip this past summer to Egypt that as I clicked away, I was preoccupied with what that picture would look like - in the instant when I took it, and in that moment after the trip when I would look to it for beauty, composition, and memories -- and less concerned with the subject of the picture. My present experience became significantly wrapped up in the future, and I was already somehow living in the past.

A moment from 10 years ago comes to mind. I was vacationing in India and was on a road trip to Agra from New Delhi. As I viewed rural India through the square window of our van, I felt the constant urge to take pictures, to somehow capture every second. It occurred to me after the fact that the urge arose from my notions of perfect photography. What I saw through my window, framed by that window, reminded me of the photos on the Discovery Channel and in National Geographic. The "picture" was perfect. It was exotic, fresh, real.

Taking pictures was partly about mimicking, then - it was about living the moment in the way I was taught to live it. I focused in on some aspects, perhaps to the exclusion of other aspects. Either way, though, I was still living in the moment, finding different ways to view and relish it. My photography was about connecting with the elements of the present.

In contrast, there is something very unreal - perhaps artificial - about photography as I conceive of it now. Photography is more about the picture than of the event, thing, or even the person. It's about capturing something for later, and sometimes that stunts the present experience so that you're forced to rely on a photograph to remember what that something ever was.