Wednesday, August 21, 2019

The Photographer

I sit with my laptop in front of me. The multiple coffee cups have left their rings to mark the passage of time. I zoom in to one section of the dark night sky with the milky way in full glory. I adjust the color of a few rocks in the corner. I also spot the flash of another camera in the same corner and Photoshop it out. Death Valley was a beauty and a beast on its own. I enjoyed the beauty and the serenity as much as I loved the experience of taking the pictures.
Photography is my life. My life! From the youngest age, I would take whole rolls of pictures and get them developed. It was an expensive pursuit growing up, putting myself through college learning from the masters. The models that I photographed lived on through my pictures - it was the chameleon that I admired, it was the balloons that I purposefully let float, it was the flowers that bloomed in full colour beautifying the wilderness of Utah. Life was photography and photography was life.
I sit back admiring the photo and I get a call on my phone. Work! For the hours that I spend taking in beauty and life, I grind on reality. "Here is the address.", he says, "Get there quick." I quickly grab my camera and labels and hit the road. The place is swarming. "It is pretty nasty in there", he says, "I don't know how you do it." I shrug and go into the house. A robbery gone wrong is never pretty, but I take those pictures for the police anyway. My art might help catch the beasts that did this. Life is beauty so is death. What they say..beauty in the eyes..