Moments Matter

I love creating. So it’s probably worth noting that my camera is almost never out of reach.

I feel like Linus carrying that blanket around everywhere. Hell, my Canon R5 Mark II is essentially my emotional support device.

Every single time I’ve been hospitalized, my cameras were there with me. During times filled with uncertainty, they gave me something familiar to hold onto. I could look through my digital creations, edit photographs in Lightroom on my iPad, and stay connected to the thing I’ve loved for most of my life.

Creating gave me somewhere to go mentally when physically I might have been stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be.

Eventually life removes the luxury of pretending certain realities are not there.

Time will do that to you.

At some point you have to face what is uncomfortable. You have to deal with what is real. I live with my realities, and I think one of my greatest superpowers is self-awareness. I know who I am. I know what I’ve been through. I know what I can do and what I can’t.

So now that we got all that out of the way, let’s take some motherlovin’ pictures.

Make the moment happen.

That’s where photography keeps bringing me back.

My job is to capture the moment, curate it, edit it with intention, and eventually produce something worthy of becoming an heirloom print.

That last part matters to me more and more.

A photograph sitting on a hard drive is still a photograph. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But something changes when that image becomes physical.

When it is printed.

When it is framed.

When it becomes part of the place where you live.

Regardless of where you are economically, seeing your own work on display does something to you. It doesn’t have to be hanging in a museum or printed six feet wide. It just has to matter to you.

As I move through my home, I’m surrounded by moments I was fortunate enough to witness and thoughtful enough to preserve.

That is a strange and beautiful thing when you really think about it.

I was the photographer who captured them.

I was the person who decided they mattered.

I was the one who curated them, worked on them, printed them, and gave them a physical life.

But over time, something changes.

I stop being only the photographer.

I become the beneficiary.

Now I get to walk past those moments. I get to admire them. See them. Touch them. Remember what was happening around them. Sometimes remember people. Sometimes remember places. Sometimes remember an entirely different version of myself.

A print lets you possess a moment without pretending you can possess time.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep carrying that camera around.

I know time is going to keep moving whether I’m ready or not.

But every once in a while, I get to catch something worth keeping.

Fit 2 Capture. Fit 2 Curate. Fit 2 Print.