The power of a Photo

The emotions and feelings that a photo can invoke are often taken for granted. With technology as developed as it is, anyone with a smartphone can take thousands of pictures, stored in a device tethered to our hands; yet we so easily forget about those photos and soon after, the memories attached to them. As photographers, it’s amplified. We go out with our cameras, capable of shooting upwards of 20 photos per second, fill up our 128GB and 512GB SD Cards, and for some of us, half those images are never even given a second thought. Back to my original point though; we taken these photos for granted, but only because we believe they are readily available to us at any moment. Whether they’re stored in the cloud, drive box, in our 2TB of phone storage, we always assume that if ever we wanted to reflex back on a fond memory with a picture, it’ll be right there. But what if they weren’t there? What if that sense of digital security fails? What if that source of reliability collapses and we begin to allow those memories to slip because we thought we had a way to remind ourselves?

This post isn’t necessarily about data storage or how many ways you could/should save photos. Instead, this post is about how a collection of pixels can invoke thoughts and memories and prove just how precious a simple photo can be. I recently experienced this firsthand during a period of transition; physically and digitally. In the move from the U.S. to Germany, I found myself upgrading a lot of my gear and equipment. Two of the main items were my phone and laptop, switching from a HP Envy to an Apple MacBook Pro. In this processing, I also switched around some stuff between a Lightroom Mobile App to a desktop Lightroom setup. I naively thought the photos would transfer themselves by using the same email address, username, and so on. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and two years’ worth of my photography had presumably vanished away because I made to rookie mistake of assuming. But after two and half years of searching and desperate attempts, I finally recovered the photos I thought were lost forever. Photos that invoked such intense memories that they brought me to tears.

When I moved to Germany, I was presented with what felt like the most difficult decisions of my life. I had to give up my dog that I raised for seven years. Yes, at the surface level she was a dog, a pet, a four-legged companion. But she was more than that. Athena was my savior when I had nothing else to hold on to. She was the reason for me to come home every day. She was a reason for me to exist. Something to take care of. Every day I would come home, even after the worst day, and she was there. I remember hearing her bark in excitement was I walked up the stairs to my apartment. Opened the door and she’d be there ready to pounce on me, run and grab her toy rope, then we’d wrestle for hours. I can recall long weekend nights, cuddled on the couch with Athena nuzzled next to me. Her protective presence, unequivocal love, and unrelenting loyalty all from an animal I raised since she was five weeks old. She meant the world to me. When I came to Germany, I couldn’t bring along my companion that kept my anxiety and depression at bay. I thought I could rely on my family to take care of this precious gift. That wasn’t the case. As a result, a decision was forced, and it still haunts me to this day. But the one thing I could rely on were the hundreds of photos I had taken of her and with her. Or so I thought. It wasn’t until settling in to my new home, upgrading my phone and laptop, and then discovering that I had seemingly lost all my original images and videos form the past two years. But this story has a happy ending, I promise.

Now I’ll spare all the boring details of countless hours it took me to get to the present. However, let’s just say I spent hours on Google doing searches on how to recover data, I spent hours frustrated selecting clickbait videos on YouTube because I did care how, I just wanted an answer to my question: HOW CAN I GET MY PHOTOS BACK!!! But of course I was able to find them. When I first recovered my photos, I was overwhelmed with joy. I jumped around my kitchen screaming out:

“Hell Yeah!!!”

“I got them back!”

“LET’S GOOOOOOO!”

I was filled with the elated sense of accomplishment and relief that the original photos had been recovered and I could once again, re-edit, restore, and remember all those memories. As I scrolled through, I came to a picture of Athena and I. It was the image of her and I laying on the couch, her in between my legs with her giant Pitbull head flopped down on my thigh, her big brown eyes peering up towards me, waiting for me to make the slightest moment that she would always assume was a sign I was getting her a treat, or it was time for a walk; both equally important for her. I continued strolling and found more and more pictures of us. Our walks through the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Reserve, her first snow day on Oklahoma, me lying on top of her as we were both sprawled out on the floor sunbathing in my home office, photos of her on her seventh and last birthday we got to spend together. Then it hit me, like taking an unguarded uppercut from Mike Tyson or the seemingly endless seconds during the realization that you were about to get into a really bad car accident; I realized that I would never see her again. I was overjoyed with having these images back, while in the same breath heartbroken that I couldn’t hold her and have her jump on me right there in that moment. Simply through pixels on a phone, I could feel her soft fur, I could feel the weight of her on my chest, I could sense her warmth in the way I used to when we unintentionally take three-hour naps on the couch while watching reruns of Game of Thrones. Honestly, I’m not sure if I could describe the feeling in words but in that moment, I was just…..thankful. As much as it still hurts to think about her and wishing I didn’t have to relinquish my bond with her, I was so happy to have those pictures to remind me of her. I was thankful to know that I had recovered something that could not only remind me of what she looked like, but how she smelt, how she felt. Something that could remind me of her personality, her playfulness, her protective nature over me, and how she was always happy to see me as I walked through any door.

Photographs, in my humble opinion, are more than just images or a collection of pixels. They are tokens that can be used to attach fleeing feelings and evading emotions to our memories. Consider a cherished photo you may have; a Polaroid of you and a grandparent that passed away, a snapshot of you and your significant other during a trip to a local fair, a picture of your son or daughter at their graduation. Sure, at face value it could remind you of the event, but look closer and allow yourself to be taken back. To remember the smell of your grandfather’s cologne, the warm but cooling autumn weather and the sound of your fiancé’s laughter at the fair, or maybe the jubilation and delight you felt as you watched your child being handed their diploma. Photographs can be so much more. So the next time you have a chance to capture a moment, take it. You’ll be surprised how much joy it could bring you later in life.