Have you ever looked at one of your own photos and thought "This is terrible, the lighting is no good, there's nothing interesting going on here, nobody would ever, ever like this, so why do I?"
That's exactly what these awful black and whites are for me, and there are plenty more where they came from. I know that they're no good at all, but I continue to snap them anyways. I couldn't understand why for a while. No one ever sees them, they have no artistic value, and it's not like anyone would ever buy them, so why? Why, if they are doing me no good at all and taking up extra space on my hard drive, do I keep them?
Then, I thought, maybe that wasn't the point of them. I started paying attention to the things that I was snapping pictures of, and I realized that these weren't meant to be good photos, or photos for others to like, or even photos for a blog. No one was going to hang them on their wall, and no one was even going to care about them. Except for me.
These are personal snapshots of the way my dinning room table looks, of the light coming through the curtains I made in the morning, of the books I love, the way it looks to sit at my desk, of a little flower I saved that sits on my window sill and keeps growing bigger with each drop of water and black tea I give it.
I want to remember how my mother taught me to quilt. I want to remember what I saw looking through an iron fence, or how the light looked coming down through the fuzzy tipped plants and the trees. I want to remember all that I can, and keep those memories some how, so that I never forget.
The point of these photos is so that I can, with 100% accuracy, remember how these things looked when I'm old and on the verge of forgetting the way my life used to be. The only wall these photos will ever belong on is my own, because they're my memories. That's the reason I take them, and keep them.
My black and white memories. So that I never forget how my life used to be.
Em
Perfect! : )
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