Memories

It’s easy as time passes to suppress how passionately I once felt about a particular person, idea, campaign, meal, or sensation. I’ve realized in the past year that I am extremely forgetful, but my images allow to me relive my past with fervency. When I scroll through old pictures, it’s as if my outtakes and forgotten frames suddenly and abruptly illustrate everything I was feeling at any particular fraction of a second.

Whether it was the type of photographer I wanted to become, the person I was in love with, or the destination I wanted to expore - I inherently documented it with my lens. Now as I sit and sort through thousands of old pictures, I see new perspectives.

I’ve always thought myself wiser than I am. No matter what my opinions were, they were always so crucial to me that it hurt to think of letting them go. I’d like to eventually be able to accept that things are more complex than that.

When I see these forgotten photos, I piece together the relationships that formed after the picture was taken, how the furniture was moved, how things got easier or more difficult the next day. Every time I held my shutter down, I created a new marker to refresh my memory. Who was I at that moment?

With a new focus in school - to document something incredibly important to me in the month of November, my mind is flooded with the meaningful moments of the past. I’m grateful to all of the people who have drifted in and out of my life to shape me, but most importantly the ones who have always remained there.