The Nature of Silence

As I've grown older, my view of silence and the idea of it has changed from thinkin of it as a harbinger of awkwardness that must be avoided at all costs, to now realizing that it is a multifaceted entity. Silence takes many forms and fits a number of unique situations. There is a serene side to silence that is most often experienced in the woods or whilst sitting at the edge of a lake. There is an uncomfortable, slightly agitating type of silence as well. The type that you may find looming at the center of a group of people at a party. There is also a silence that bursts at the seams with tension and echoes with the harsh words exchanged several moments prior. Perhaps the most luxurious and sought-after form of silence is that which resides between an elderly couple who have loved each other for a lifetime and know one another so very well that they don't even need to exchange sentences to know what the other is thinking. 

Hindsight Spectacles

Lately I have been journaling everyday, and as I imagine my 30-year old self flipping through these records of my teenage life I can't help but wonder what will really matter when I am that old and can look back in hindsight. Will the 20/20 perspective of my past be a remorseful experience or an encouraging and pleasant hobby? What will be of interest when I reflect back on these golden years? I am starting to get the feeling that the exact details of what my teenage life consists of will be less important than what my life is about. 

This same vein of thought was present in the mind of the professor at a Brook's Institute workshop I attended who often would encourage us to take pictures about things and not necessarily of things. In other words, that which is implied often times packs a greater punch than that which is explicitly brought out into the open. The word of and the word about are inherently and necessarily quite different in their connotations. In most sentences, the former precedes a material or physical object or place. The word about on the other hand is often tied with a thought, or a feeling, or even a person. 

Do you think about things or do you think of things?

The Photograph as a Seal

In this fast-paced world, the time that we spend in person with friends is not only becoming less and less, but it is also subsequently becoming more and more valuable. Sharing a meal or an intimate conversation in the heart of a bustling and monstrous suburbia is an enjoyable experience, but can be easily forgotten. And this is where the power of photographs comes into play. When you hand the waiter your iPhone and ask him to take a picture of you and your friend, what is actually happening is that the pleasant rendezvous is actually being solidified and made into a concrete entity - one that will last much longer than a lone memory. Susan Sontag writes in her book, On Photography, how people in modern societies look to the lens as a way of confirming the authenticity and reality of the event in which they now stand. 

Relive

Perhaps one of the most powerful abilities that photographs possess is to act as a catalyst for the memories of our mind. While I have not experienced this effect firsthand very often (since 90% of the time I am the one behind the camera creating the memories for people to enjoy), tonight I enjoyed reliving the happenings of yesterday by looking through the prom pictures of our group.

No matter how hard one tries to live in the present and to make the most of everything, eventually every experience is archived into the deep library of the mind. By looking at photographs of past significant events, a pungent yet pleasant nostalgic vignette can be resurrected. So remember to hire photographers like me to capture significant events in your life because even Bob Dylan knows that "the times are a-changin'."