Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Why yes, I do repeat myself. Often.

Look in any window
Montreal, QC
September 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram


I take a lot of photos of the same thing.

Exhibit A: this angled view of 1 Place Ville Marie, a followup to yesterday’s impressionist-reflective shot of the same building.

Why I do this is rooted deep in my childhood, as I took my first steps as a photographer. In the pre-digital era, every photo was precious. So I might have grabbed a frame or two of a sight like this before calling it a day and packing the camera away.

Inevitably, I’d get home and develop the film, only to realize it wasn’t what I intended. Maybe I botched the exposure. Or the composition. Or the focus. Or I thought of another angle. I’d be left with a feeling of having missed out on telling the full story.

In today’s digital age, I can capture as many images as my memory card and battery will allow. So I’ll stand there and think of all sorts of ways to remember a place or a thing or a moment. I’ll give myself the time to ponder the possibilities, to brainstorm, to dream a little.

And as thoughts pop into my head and I try to realize them with the shutter, it often dawns on me that the photo isn’t always the mission. They’re just reminders of a moment in time where nothing else matters, where I get to put the planet on pause and just take in the experience of being there, then.

And on any other day, I could come back to this very same place and stare at the very same thing, and come up with a completely different experience in my mind of what it felt like to be there.

And every photo might ostensibly be of the same building. But it would tell a very different story.

And so I continue to return to places like this. Because there’s always another story to tell, and another moment to remember.

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