I recently watched Kodachrome, a film about a father and son reconnecting during a trip to reach a photo lab before it finally closes and the father passes away. At the end of the movie, Ed Harris, who plays the father, says "We're all so frightened by time, the way it moves on and the way things disappear. That's why we're photographers. We're preservationists by nature. We take pictures to stop time, to commit moments to eternity. Human nature made tangible." The quote really resonated with me because I have been taking photos for the last few months trying to capture some joy in the midst of the pandemic.
Normally, I draw or paint to escape from the world, but in the endless days of the pandemic, I've been yearning for connection and grasping to hold onto moments of hope, joy, and beauty. Being faced with the fact that we are truly mortal and no longer safe to live our lives as we have in the past, I am frightened by time. I've been wishing for time to speed up and take us back to some normalcy, but I am also terrified of losing the precious moments that we often took for granted prior to the pandemic.
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