Jacob

A picture of one taking a picture of him taking a picture of one. This could go on forever, so I guess I'll stop...and yet stopping equates defeat, that writer's block remains victorious in this struggle. So maybe it'll take some dissection to get the story to this picture started.

Maybe he's wishing I captured him doing something more impressive, spectacular even. Right now I'm just wishing I had a better picture to work from than this. But maybe this is the essence of of improv, to work with what you've got. Just as he utilizes a cigarette box to filter the flash of the camera. And so we must use what we've got to do and create to the fullest of our abilities. It really is powerful, isn't it, improv.

Or maybe it just needs another angle (to look at the picture, not how the picture should be taken). A picture after all is not just the way the photographer sees the world, but how the subject wants to be seen by the photographer. Capturing the world for himself, preserving its essence as memories, relived later when they have all but faded, vived as if it happened only yesterday, only several hours ago, only within the last minute. Its what a camera is for after all and the strap around his neck shows his seriousness on the subject, keeping the camera always at hand to capture the images, moments, stories that depict the life he lives at this time in his life. Keeping it always at hand to capture what is essentially a photo timeline of his life. And a filter, a filter, a cigarette box to filter out the artificial light cast on the scene, preserving it as purely as the eyes see it, keeping the memory untarnished and as close to the way the mind will see it (the scene, not the photograph) in the years to come. And so the subject becomes a Keeper of Time, one who preserves it as fully as possible until the time when the memory is no longer needed and can be cast into oblivion along with other moments washed away by a cleansing rainfall.