Photograph! The word 'photograph' is becoming natural to me in my day-to-day life. No, not because I own a Canon DSLR or upload my photos consistently on my Social Networks. It's because I live with that word now, and I believe the word photograph itself lives with me.
There’s some magic in photographs.
Every time you see a photograph,
It can make you smile,
It can make you laugh,
It can make you cry and bring tears to your eyes,
It can bring back that priceless memory right in front of our eyes and make it alive.
The photograph can also make you feel that there’s something more to life. You exist in this world with not just a body but with a soul too. And that soul is nothing but a memory captured in the form of a photo. In general, a photograph is a soul that is captured and preserved for eternity. It can be a soul of a person, for a person or by a person. Well yes, you get it right! I’m a Photographer, and I am living the photography life along with the dance life. The artist's life, I would say!
For me, what photography truly means is “capturing a moment and collecting a soul”. And what photograph means is “a captured moment and collected soul”. As time passes by or day after day, I’m getting closer and deeper into the word photograph and vice versa I think. The meaning of it keeps getting more real and alive. Photos have so much power and are very capable of conveying any emotion, expression, feeling, etc. That's the alchemy of a photograph, I guess!
Nowadays, people believe more in photographs than words. They trust more in a frame than paragraphs. With that stated, I’m not saying that words don’t have power at all. But what I truly mean by that and believe is “words that said right, doesn’t go waste and photographs that captured right, speak infinitely”.
In today’s world, people prefer to have a photograph rather than an autograph. Yes, it’s a digitised world! But why? Because I think, the autograph is temporary and the photo is permanent. Signatures are handwritten, and images capture the soul. But, I feel sad about the fact that nowadays people take pictures only to set a new profile picture. I’ve seen and also heard many people taking the pictures now to update their profile picture on social media. I want to say to them that you don’t understand the real meaning of a photograph. Photographs are a memory that we capture to carry along with us lifelong, rather than just hitting a pose and then setting it as a new profile picture or posting here and there.
I want to share one incident with you all that happened to me in life, related the word photograph. This incident will define precisely why I said this sentence earlier, “I live with the word photograph now, and I believe that the word photograph itself lives with me”.
So here’s what something happened. As usual in college, attending a lecture, I still remember Embedded System lecture it was, and we had to submit our case study project assignment on car engine during the session. So, done with the submission and done with the lecture. As soon as my friend and I exited the class and stepped outside, I saw a notice in the corridor just beside our class door with something is written along “PHOTOGRAPY is strictly not allowed in Classroom and it is prohibited”. Well let me make it clear, this was the same way the word Photography written/printed in that notice with the alphabet H missing in it. So, within a fraction of second after reading that notice, I took out a black pen outside my bag and started to correct that notice. And just when I was about to correct, my friend told me “Bro, let it be. It is just a notice. It might be a printing mistake. Let’s go!” I said in return, “No dude, my eyes can see any other word written incorrect in that notice, but they just can’t see the word Photography written or printed incorrectly”. And then I corrected that notice making an upper arrow just below and between the alphabets P & Y, and writing alphabet H just above them.
Days later whenever I used to see that notice, I used to smile watching the word 'PHOTOGRAPHY'. So this was the whole incident! That’s the reason I wrote earlier in this post, I and photograph are living together.
I honestly believe that the most beautiful, creative, and the best photographer in the world is God and he/she is my all-time favourite. The way God has created this beautiful universe and all the living & non-living creatures are more like a photograph first then they come to life and exist in this world in their form with a specific amount of lifespan gifted to them.
You know, what the miracle about this life is! We’re all photographs first before our birth, created by the creator God. And then, we come to life. From then on, it’s all on us about how to photograph our life. Whether to make it happy, fun, adventurous, entertaining, successful, inspiring, etc. whatever we decide. And later, we all die being a photograph of the world. Because after everything is over in life or after our death, there’s only one thing that stays alive. And, that one thing is nothing but a photo. Yes, a photograph!
Because
"We’re all photographs in the end."
– Ronak Sawant
