Waiting to Develop: Taking the Time to Process in a Picture-Perfect World
I’m a pretty good amateur photographer. When something catches my eye, or the light is just right, or maybe there’s a juxtaposition of things that speaks to me, I take a moment to capture it in a photograph. Of course, like anything in art, in everything in life, it’s really just all about perspective, isn’t it?
The photo is a reflection of how I see things. My husband, for instance, might have taken a picture of the same image, but it would look completely different. Sometimes, because he knows I like to take photos, he nudges me to take a pic. Ooh, look at that when he notices something. But if it hasn’t drawn my eye in a particular way, then I decline. I just don’t feel called to capture it. My mother-in-law is a huge fan. She’s always remarking about what a wonderful photographer I am. Well, that’s her perspective, I suppose. All I know is that I only take photos when, as I described before, the moment feels right.
But what about you? Why do you take photos? I mean, we all do it to some extent, don’t we? I mean, we all do it to some extent, don’t we? Pretty much every one of us has a camera in our pocket at all times. But again, I’m asking you, why do you take photos? Hmm, If you’re not one to regularly snap a pic, let me ask you this how often do you find yourself scrolling through other people’s photos?
Do you remember the photo booth when we were teenagers? It was so much fun to find one in the mall and squeeze in there with your favorite friend or person of the moment. Those pictures were always raw and usually silly. We had to cram together to get into the shot that was the fun part and then try to hold the pose without falling until the screen counted down and snapped the shot. These were always so fun because what it captured was typically laughter, hysterics, crazy faces living in the moment, the opposite of curated, more like spontaneous or natural or well real. I also remember a time when taking a photograph wasn’t instant like it is today. Not only was it not immediate, we had to finish the whole roll of film first and then head over to the drugstore to have it developed. The week or so it took to process felt like an eternity to wait, and when they were finally ready and we were going to pick them up, it was the highlight of my week. And it wasn’t cheap either. Many of my hard-earned babysitting dollars were spent paying for them. If I was lucky, there might be four or maybe five good pics in the batch of 24 or 36 exposures. The others blurry, over or underexposed, and a picture of my thumb over the lens or the infamous red devil eyes from the flash.
These days, we curate our photos to show only our best side, best angle, best life, taking them over and over again until we look the way we want to be seen. We have become tethered to some kind of elusive perfection, never being satisfied with simply capturing a moment for a moment’s sake. and look. In many ways, we are very fortunate that technology has given us access to beautiful images from around the world and from nature that we might not otherwise see, but we also have unlimited access to horrible things, not to mention the curated impressions of everyone else’s so-called perfect lives.
Think and think again, my friends, about how you capture moments, about how you engage with other people’s photographs and with how you curate your own. Is it really so important what other people think. I’ll still stop to capture an image that strikes me as meaningful or profound and share it with anyone who might be drawn to look at it through their own lens. But oh, how I miss that wonderful, messy, spontaneous, imperfect moment that we captured in photo booths and drugstore cameras when we took the time, when we took the time to process and develop our memories.
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