In youth I excitedly photographed friends I had known for a few weeks, in part to remeber them (and oddly when I recall those times it’s the photographs that come first to mind). One friend was sitting in the white-walled top-floor dorm room, the ceiling slanted with the roof and the oppressve heat soaked up by slate roofing baking us. On a pale blue comforter (or something) she sat reading with long blonde-brown hair, half as long as her body, in a ponytail with round glasses, wearing a white tank top and robin egg blue shorts while the sun overlit everything we could see through the window, trees, the adjacent building down the hill, the sky. I ran the entire length of the hall to get my camera, there was something perfectly beautiful about this that needed capturing.

Developing the roll weeks later, away from my friends, I found the perfect photograph half-obscured by a blurry chunk of pale peach- my finger was over the lens. It’s one of those perfect jokes of my life, but thinking of it, having the photograph, reminds me of what it actually looked like.

In another example, my brother’s sister in law Missy (my sister in law’s sister, which is correct?) and I were my neice’s godparents, so there’s a picture of me holding her with Missy standing next to me, smiling while Rachael squirms a little in her Christening gown. When Rachael recieved her first holy communion / confession, we recreated the photo, of course Rachael was eight or so at the time, so she was a little more difficult to hold, but it was great. I’m hoping to continue this up as she recieves additional sacraments to her wedding day, because you can’t pass up that kind of tableau.

In short (too late!) I don’t think I abuse the ability to capture images, there’s usually something really specific in mind when I do.