The Worth of a Photograph

If I added up the hours spent learning how to work my Big Mama camera.

If I added up the hours of learning to edit, crop, embellish.

If I added up the hours to work through the likes of i Photo, Photoshop and Lightroom.

If I added up the hours of reviewing and relearning.....

I have to ask myself WHY DO I TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS?

This answer I know:

To revisit.

To remember.

To record.

To improve.

To share.

When I paint a painting, there is something substantive, something  tangible to hang on a wall. 

When I take thousands of photos, a few are shared, but mostly they are relegated to discs and hard drives. 

So it still comes back to the same reasons.

To revisit, remember, record, share.

Each single shot provides immediate recall. 
I know where I was. I know how I felt. I can remember colors, smells,  human beings living their lives, the lay of the land, the color of the ocean.

I want to remember the day the granddaughters put makeup on their good natured moms.

I want to remember the chubby pink fingers of our newest grandchild.

I want to remember the hopscotch run of an enthusiastic three year old with scabs on his knees.

I want to remember the waves  swirling around sandcastles patiently built, immediately dissolved.
I want to remember the women, working the tea plantations in the mid day sun, backs bent with heaviness. 

I want to remember the bountiful tender mercies in my life.

When I  grow too old to take the photographs, I will have these reminders, memories, of what tiny events have made up my existence.

And so I continue learning the new, relearning the old, shouldering heavy camera equipment,

wishing people would wait for me a bit longer while I take another shot

being irritated with myself as I hesitated a fraction of a second too long before clicking the shutter button.

This is a part of my life path I  find JOY in.

Heart Thought: and what about YOU?  

Sharing with Rebecca Brooks and her wonderful contributors at Postcards from Paradise.