Meditations on First Photography

I've been photographing since I was old enough to physically hold my father's camera. From that first click of the shutter, I've been obsessed with the craft, obsessed with mastering it. If I am alive when you read this, I'll be a better photographer than when I wrote it.

If I inherited my dad’s passion for photography and his keen compositional eye (his name, Shahin, means ‘hawk’ in Farsi), then I received from my mother, Rozita, who trained as a graphic designer and is the most beautiful and stylish woman I know, a deep intuitive appreciation for beauty. Especially where it is not purposefully constructed or posed but unfolds naturally and without any makeup.

Photography for me is a passion, an art form, a side-hustle. But it's so much more. It's who I am and how I see. It's the brush, the quill, by which to craft art from the light and colors of life — or rather, call attention to the art that is already there before us. It's a way of paying homage to this sublime, splendid spectacle we call 'life.'

You may think, as I did until quite recently, that the photograph is a way to freeze the past. And indeed, by its very definition, that is what it is, that is what it does. But when one is behind the camera, one must be entirely present. To fail to be present is to miss the shot. More importantly: to fail to be present is to miss the present.

In ancient Greek myth we bear witness to the timeless condition of our naive mortal souls to yearn greedily and fruitlessly for immortality. A part of me feels — can't help but feel — that through my photographs, I document, even preserve, the past: my past, other people's past, the past of things and places. This is the Siren's call of the photograph, the oh-so-alluring yet oh-so-misleading seduction it whispers in our hungry ears.

I am by my nature a nostalgic and emotional being, as I think most of us are. I shall never cease to cherish the ability of a photograph to transport us to a place and time we have been — or not been — but to which, in any case, we cannot return. And yet, somewhat paradoxically, it is through capturing the past that I seek to cultivate in myself and in my viewer the full attention, appreciation, and contemplation that I believe the present is due.

No, I no longer believe the essence of photography is to preserve what was. The truth is that nothing that is here can be preserved forever, no matter how much extra iCloud storage one pays for. And to truly accept this, to truly open our hearts and our minds to the ephemerality of all things, this I believe is the only salvation we may have in this life, the best chance we have of liberating our souls of their burden so we may flutter through this world as lightly and joyfully as a hummingbird.

Here's to living life with the passion that the very gift of existence calls upon us to muster forth. Here's to this present moment, the most profound and real thing there has ever been and never will be again. And here's to the beautiful blessing of being here to experience it.