Unphotographable

I am an imperfect photographer. Imprecise and impractical. Unpractised and amateur. The frame that I form between my outstretched fingers is inconsistent, unevenly shaped, plain wrong. My astygmatic eyes frequently fail as a pin-sharp viewfinder. My nervous balance and lack of poise turn the focused to fuzzy.

I prefer a statue to a living and breathing entity, because the former is unable to shy away from my fumbled attempts at transforming it into art. Still life cannot decide to adjust its position in the same microsecond that the shutter whirs, clicks and mechanically blinks. Concrete and wood win out over flesh and bone, even though my unspoken desire would be to preserve a person in pixellated history.

In the darkroom of my dreams, shadowy profiles become powerful portraits that move the viewer to tears. In my imaginings, I am the silent yet authoritative presence obscured behind the glass of technology, who asks not for a smile daubed from cheek to cheek in the broadest brushstroke, but merely for an expression filled with truth.

So when that fleeting moment presented itself as almost too picture perfect - evenly framed, your face evocatively lit by the hazy sunlight of a spring evening, and with your skin pulsing with life and a tale told - I reached for the camera once more, in the distant hope of saving the scene for posterity. My hands carved the lens out of thin air, my eyes fine-tuned their focus and depth, my face edged closer to magnify the image, and my right index finger pressed the shutter release.

No whir, no click, no mechanical blink.

I am an imperfect photographer, but I surpassed my inexperience in the brief pause of a snapshot. I recorded a look that will last into beyond. I caught your gaze and sent it forth to live its life. Not on film. Not on paper. Not even on a screen. But here, only here. Where it belongs.

Comments: 8

    Very true - Photographs are prompters for the memory.

    overnighteditor | 05.12.08, 23:02

    Great stuff. I take slightly better photos now I have a digital camera and can take many and edit and crop and straighten etc. but they still fall far short of what I see in my eye.

    ‘the darkroom of my dreams’ - is a great phrase, there is fun to be had in that image alone.

    jem | 05.13.08, 12:37

    Stubbornly refusing to be defined as a particular moment, frame of time, escaping the pretentious wit from the overly studied hand of a photographer, they live instead untethered, and free, like a reckless dare.

    blueseaurchin | 05.13.08, 22:16

    OE - You’re right, and even though there is no image on photographic paper to hold in my hands, this picture will definitely stay in the mind and prompt further memories.

    Jem - All my photos fall short of what I actually see. They’re generally sharp and focused, for one thing.

    Blueseaurchin - ‘Free, like a reckless dare’. I like that.

    An Unreliable Witness | 05.14.08, 10:20

    I love, “I caught your gaze and sent it forth to live its life.” these words will also live a life in my mind. Thank you.

    lillipilli | 05.16.08, 00:49

    I just have to say; you should get a Holgan camera. No digital photos, just the whirr and the click.

    Ziv Catbee | 05.16.08, 10:10

    Lillipilli - Thank you. My words living a life in someone’s mind is all I can ask, really.

    Ziv Catbee - Never heard of a Holga, but have always fancied tinkering with a Lomo. But there’s the cost of film to consider. So instead, I have a Lomo Photoshop filter. (I know, I know, I’m a heathen.)

    An Unreliable Witness | 05.16.08, 21:03

    I caught your gaze”…This made me think of Eve Arnold. In Retrospect is so, so good. And there’s also some excellent stuff in Magnum Stories. But I don’t get to look at that too often as it’s too bloody heavy to pick up. Some photography collections should have their weight specified before you order them. Anyway, aside from the book recommendations, I liked this very much.

    seahorse | 05.24.08, 00:05

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