Something has to be said about capturing memories. I think I talk about it so much and I do it so much, in so many ways, that it is time to become explicit about it. Yes, I love doing it. Ever since I was little, I have done it. I don’t know why, but I need to capture my life. I think it is important. I have written when I was sad, written when I was bored, and now I write when I am happy. Why?
I don’t know. Perhaps because I am not so religious. I feel that life is all we have. And I really don’t think it is all about suffering. Eastern religions, as much as I love them way more than Western ones, often talk about life as suffering. I do not want to wash myself of all material world, nor do I want be drowned in it. I want all of it. This is what being "Hindu" should be about. I think every little moment matters. Actually, I think I very strongly believe it.
So, then comes the question of HOW do we capture? Obviously what this blog is about is a sentiment shared by many other humans – for we have gone out of our ways to create paintings, sculptures, cameras, video cameras, etc. We have experimented with dimensions to keepsake the moment as it is.
I think of this blog as my 4th dimension. It means a lot to me. And I often wonder if I should be writing myself out on here. Then I think, I have lived, and I matter. So, this is one way that I capture myself. While there is reader risk in the anonymity of this blog, I feel I minimize the risk by being truly honest when I do post. While there is reader risk because the writer, I, may not know anything at all, I encourage my readers to be skeptical of me. I give an important window of my life to the reader, but I remind the reader that there is only so much a window can show.
This brings me back to the issue of photos. They too are just windows. What’s fascinating is that there are just way too many (I want to say infinite) dimensions required for a true and complete capture of any one thing.
Now, should I be offended that people call me photogenic? Well, I have heard several cases on this matter. This, also, is a matter that needs to be explicitly addressed, and I guess, today is the day. Some friends have tried telling me that it does not mean I look better in photos than in real life, but that my energy is captured well. That is the most optimistic explanation of someone calling me photogenic. Even though it is not very convincing, I like it.
Am I photogenic because the camera captures more dimensions? Obviously not. I am photogenic because I have become smart enough to figure out my best angles. And my mind efficiently calculates my best possible position in the 4 seconds before someone clicks the camera despite varying contexts. Now, THAT skill is what people should be complimenting. If they wanted to say I look good, calling me photogenic is just torture.
I may be photogenic because my true energy is captured in the 4 seconds. Believe it or not, I do genuinely try to stay honest to myself, even (and perhaps especially) in the 4 seconds in which I spend the first second wanting to look good for the future viewers of the photo to see. This would imply then that I think my true energy is what’s beautiful. Well, I don’t think that’s so untrue. But if that were the case, people would not be surprised from photo to real life – energy in person should be there just as equally, if not more in person. After all, real life a.k.a. in person – the most dimensions possible.
So now, I do not only know my best angles, but also my best dimensions? Daang! That's when you need to beware of me.
Ending the topic of my photogenic-ness, we revert back to capturing dimensions. So, (bear with me again here for a moment –this is about honesty in capturing) I began to find ways that I would put profile pictures that captured my energies and were unconventional for the category of “Wow, she looks so good” pictures. I tried to stay away from people saying I look good in photos. I wanted there to be no surprise from reality to photo. I wanted the capture to be honest and true to reality.
I then began thinking about editing photos. How do I feel about that? For a long long time, I felt that editing a photo to make yourself look better was obviously cheating. The last thing I wanted was to make myself look even better in photos by editing the color, lighting, etc. My best friend would always change her photos to black and white mode and such; I thought it was just because she thought it was cool looking as a photo. Maybe, I still don’t know. She’ll tell me after this post.
What I realized I DID like about editing photos was that sometimes, a camera just isn’t enough. Even the best of the bests are not canon enough! The deep seated purpose of photos and videos, I realized, was not to show them to the world and to get their opinion on how you look. Instead, the real purpose, is to capture the moment, the memory, and your sentiments, your perceptions. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, not in the eye of the camera. The eye that beheld that beauty can and should edit as it deems necessary for a truer capture. That is a more honest photo, despite the editing. It shows and shares what you saw. Of course, to avoid nostalgic remnants that can contaminate the honesty of a photo, it is best to minimize the time between the time of the capture and the time of editing.
I try not to feel guilty when I truly want to edit photos to capture the energy I beheld at the time. If I saturate, it is because in some photos, it is clearly some aspects of my face that matter more than others. If I make the photo more warm, it is because I felt warm and full of color, even if my face did not look like it from the camera’s objectified and standardized lens (what a creation! People nowadays are so obsessed with standardizing and creating metrics. Vision can be standardized through the camera, but you view the photo again with subjective vision – how nuts!). I add tint sometimes when the scenery I remembered did have it, but the camera had filtered some light out.
I try to use the blog in a similar way. My obsession about being honest really is more nuts than I ever realized. I realized that being a researcher, trying to be honest, and trying to be neutral does make me want to capture things JUST the way they are. But, I am human, and a passionate Hindu. I am not trying to neutralize. I don’t want to. I love life and all its dimensions. I don’t need to de-emotion everything in order for it to be honest. I reconcile by letting the world know that while I do try to start research from value 0 ( as difficult as that is), I add value in capturing the things so close to my heart, because it is those values that I want to capture and keepsake. It is the reactions, emotions, and values derived from the experience of this "material world" that I try to grasp. I think Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse's Novel would agree with me on some level. The passion, the subjectivity, the humanness, and all the dimensions – that’s the fun part!
