Tuesdays I volunteer at a local hospice, working as a Chaplin's assistant. The lesson that I am learning about life and photography, for the lack of better words is...life changing.
Every room I walk into has it hanging on the wall. It's there framed as if it were hung with the only purpose of being seen by a single viewer. It is a montage of the person's life and all of their loved ones in photographs.
Consciousness comes in and out and upon waking back up into this realm, there it is seen in direct view from the bedside of the dying.
Photographs...our sacred ritual for celebrating life. A photo removes time, it gives us history, present and future, all in a single frame. It suspends time for the viewer.
It is truly the gateway for passing well into the next world. A photo comforts the viewer letting them know that their life mattered and that their life will live on long past their physical dying.
It is what heals those left behind. It is what holds love and memories for generations to come.
As of late I have been writing on the provenance and legacy that photographs give us and the importance of what is held within the four walls of the framed subject.
As this theme grows in my mind I can not help but see how powerful the images that we create today will last longer than anything else our client will ever own.
The ritual of celebrating life has been with us since we walked out of the Garden of Eden. An understanding what connects us to to the sacred is important and needed for us. A photograph gives us this connection.
No longer must we give a sacrifice to God, no longer must we walk into temples to touch a piece of the divine, no longer must we feel separated...a photo is the new sacred.
Only in the past 100yrs have we had this gift of holding time/love/family all in a single frame to pass down to generations.
* Inspire * Commit * Photograph
