I started taking pictures so I could control the moments of my life and reorganize them into some kind of concise and clean revision of my memories, one in which even the bad parts contain beauty and vividness. For a while I was obsessed with the idea of taking 365 Self Portraits, a popular challenge on the photo website flickr.com. I spent hours browsing the self portrait photosets of other members, many of them astounding in their beauty and poignancy, and I envied that kind of neatly packaged record of a year in my life. I'm obviously not alone in this craving. Not only are photo websites like Flickr incredibly popular, but scrapbooking as a hobby is something of a craze these days. In fact, long before I discovered Flickr, I used to buy scrapbook magazines, not because I ever took up the hobby, or really planned to, but because I liked to look at the neat layouts of cherub-cheeked babies and smiling couples, surrounded by kitschy stickers and rubber-stamped lettering that put neat titles on life's shining moments. It's like the commercialization of life. All one has to do is open the scrapbook and then feel the relief course through one's limbs as each cheery page proclaims that yes! the baby was always smiling, the summers filled with trips to the beach under sunny skies, and Christmas a warm betwinkled blur of laughter and crumpled paper. And if the photos themselves don't convey this just right, there are always little notions and do-dads at the craft store to help drive the point home, and pretty printed papers to convey the right mood.
I like photography because I'm so mediocre at it. Unlike the written word, photography allows me to be satisfied with limiting myself to safe subjects. It doesn't force me to look at the memories so ugly that they lay crumpled like a dead thing in the corner of my mind. I'm okay with not being great at it, because at least I'm in charge of it. Those damn words, on the other hand, they don't listen. They are are naughty, always wanting to dash into the middle of a crowded street. They're a bit like children in their ruthless demands for attention and love, and like a mother, I know I'll never be quite good enough.
3 comments:
Very interesting post, and this principle of needing to limit, restrict, control various aspects of our life so that we can handle it. Recently I read some things G.K. Chesterton said about this, how we like to read a novel partly because it narrows the information and view. (When I find that I want to publish the quote.) You've described how photographs and the taking of them can also help.
I'm so happy you are blogging again. Thank you! I know it can be a chore. I like it for several ways it is satisfying, after sometimes only an hour or two of work.
Very interesting post, and this principle of needing to limit, restrict, control various aspects of our life so that we can handle it. Recently I read some things G.K. Chesterton said about this, how we like to read a novel partly because it narrows the information and view. (When I find that I want to publish the quote.) You've described how photographs and the taking of them can also help.
I'm so happy you are blogging again. Thank you! I know it can be a chore. I like it for several ways it is satisfying, after sometimes only an hour or two of work.
I'm so happy you're blogging again!
I purposefully have pictures of my children doing naughty things or crying or just being a total mess. Because, even though those are the hard times, they're also the ones I will remember fondly later (even if it is much, much later). I like blueberry faces, milk poured out on the sidewalk, & a 2 yr old who is just so tired she can't possibly do anything but pout & weep anymore right now. That's real life. It's okay to admit it. :)
Again, so glad you're blogging!
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