PHOTOGRAPHY: THE SILENT NARRATOR OF PASSING LIFE

 













Have you ever been handed a family album to look through while you waited for someone? Do you remember how you must have felt flipping through it and having all those strange lives settle around you like falling dew?  Like the past was as tangible as the crocheted table cloth covering the center table? How about a photo documentary on the effects of war? Were you able to tell the feeling of fear and panic? How did you make your deductions? Was it in the look in their eyes or the collar bone sticking out of their flesh? Was it the atmosphere of destruction and chaos in the background?

How then, do we share in similar experiences without someone taking out a camera and capturing a moment?

I think photography is like a lot of things. A country song and an old sermon. But most of all, I think a photograph is a love letter. Sometimes carefully crafted and poised; painting a picture of collectedness and perfection. And other times too, it’s unplanned; brimming with naturalness and all the flaws of the moment. And as the years pass by, we store them. In boxes and in old books; in locked purses and dusty shelves; and in places we never think to find. But above all, when they begin to fade at the edges and lose their perfect details, we still hold on to them. Because they tell the stories better in ways words cannot. 

Why do you look through a lens to capture an event or a person? Is it to tell a story or to be a keeper of one? Is it merely about the right amount of light and filters? Is it not a little more than that? It is.

A little more like making memories and making it possible to relive moments. Is it not a little more about the smile which speaks of joy and eyes that tell a story of fear or pain? It is.
.
  
I believe photography does a little more. It opens its lens and uncovers all the hidden meanings of an expression. It releases its shutters and brings to life all the shades of possibility; all the words unsaid and all the burdens unknown. 

PHOTO CREDIT: https://500px.com/yungsummit

Written By: TRYPHENA LIZZERT A. O. YEBOAH