I read an article once that said the more pictures people take, the less they remember about a given place or event. As a photographer, this seemed ludicrous to me. Surely, photographs help us to create memories! I know how valuable they are to people. I know how valuable they are to me!
But a few days ago, in Nepal, I think I finally understood. Derek and I were wandering through a huge market area in Kathmandu. The streets were lined with brass and incense, yak wool blankets,pottery and Gurkha knives. The small shops lining the street were crammed to colorful and chaotic capacity and above them, the upper floors of the building were adorned with interesting windows, doors and shutters. There was wood and brick and stone and plaster. I felt overloaded by the visual experience of it and framed and shot pictures almost frantically, trying to capture every inch of this exotic and fascinating place.
After several minutes of concentrating on my pictures, the thought occurred to me that I was here in Kathmandu, Nepal with Derek and I was barely paying attention to him as I concentrated on shooting. I stopped and lowered my camera and looked at the brass shop I had been photographing, then I looked at Derek. I mentioned the article to him and how maybe I really was missing a big part of the experience.
Derek looked at me and smiled an enigmatic little smile. I looked longer and realized It's one I've seen many times over the years and I knew exactly what it meant. It meant, "Oh good. You've finally realized (fill in the blank)". He's awfully good at letting me come to realizations on my own.
He looked back at the shop I had been photographing as I suggested that maybe I was missing something by focusing so much on taking pictures of our experience. He smiled bigger and said, "You mean like the smell of Jasmine in the air? Or the sound of the bells in front of the brass shop ringing in the wind? Maybe the glint of the sun on the brass platters?"
I just stared at him in awe of his perception. He understood. Even better than I had. So with my camera dangling from my fingers, we stood there and just looked at the shop and took in everything about it and I suddenly saw so much that I had missed initially. I...experienced the shop. We moved on and this time, walked quietly...slowly down the street. Absorbing.
I won't lie, I still took a few pictures...but less. Instead I took his hand and we wandered and we listened to the sounds and we smelled the Jasmine and we took in the total experience both of the city and of being together in such an amazing place.
A little further down the street we saw a Hindu temple. As we passed through the threshold into the small square we heard the overwhelming thrum of hundreds of pigeons. A woman was flinging out seed to them with a wide arc of her arm. The birds would cluster to eat and then some little thing would startle them and they would burst into the air all around us. Again I grabbed my camera excitedly and began shooting but then I looked at Derek and put it down again and just stood and absorbed the moment.
I experienced the collective cooing, the breeze created by so many wings flapping all at once and again...Derek. It was magical. Transcendent, and I think I wouldn't have realized that if I had just kept focusing on the ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed.
I love photography. It is an amazing way for us to preserve memories, but they are one dimensional. The next time we travel or visit family or do whatever we are doing, I will remember to put the camera down more often and live right there in that moment and be with the people I am with, instead of trying to capture the surface experience quite so thoroughly.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I won't still post waaay too many of the pictures I did take;-)
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