Ever since I can remember being me, I’ve observed the world in still frames. It’s not something I needed to learn when I took my first photography course; it’s the reason I’d decided to take the course in the first place. I guess I’ve always been seeking stillness, recognising (without understanding it) at a very young age that there was more to life than racing forward with time, that life was also happening where we couldn’t see, in between the spaces we create with our thoughts and our words.
The ability to capture these spaces is what inspires me to pick up a camera. It’s not only the documentation of the moment – it’s the documentation of the hidden moment, the one we didn’t even know was there. It’s the ability to see in between the lines, to capture a feeling or an energy that had gone unseen, that moment you didn’t even know was there.
Photography is a medium that preserves the past, in ways that go against what Yoga teaches us: to let go, live in the present, be in the now without attachment. Photos do the opposite; they yank us out of the moment and into a web of thoughts. However, photos can also initiate inspiration through visual stimulation. They can evoke feelings positive and negative vital to our development.
Like all forms of art and expression, at the end of the day, photography is what we personally choose to take or leave with our viewing of it. It’s not the photo performing the act of ‘yanking us out of the moment’ – it’s what we’ve chosen to make of that image.
I choose to take photos as a medium of expression. A platform to release a vibration or a feeling running through me. Sometimes I plan and think ahead, sometimes I snap a frame because what I’m seeing tickles my insides with a warm and unmistakable beauty. Life happening, still.