“Dude can you get that damn camera away from my face!?”
“Stop living from the ‘gram bro”
“Its okay, just live in the moment dude”
These are the comments you get to hear on the daily when you attempt to be the resident photographer friend. You get branded as the annoying, borderline shallow buzzkill when people just wanna perhaps enjoy a meal or a conversation in peace. I’m not going to lie, it does feel like you are interrupting far too many genuine moments. The constant groaning and sighing from your lunch-table muses also does not help. Becoming that person who just can’t let things be or who has to feed the camera first is certainly not a badge you walk around wearing proudly.
And yet later, without fail, the narrative flips like clockwork when I flop in my bed the same night to see a fleet of notifications asking me to send the same pictures in HD or to upload them on a Google Drive folder. Suddenly the same frames that felt like interruptions become the very thing people hunt for. While everyone else might be alright “living in the moment,” my skeptic-self thinks that is a scam. Whenever we end up talking about experiences, there is always an instinctual need to reach far and wide for a visual aid. So where the hell do people think that comes from!? That comes from people who are willing to preserve these series of spontaneous moments.
9 out of 10 times, amid all the groaning and protests from your friends, the shots never even end up coming out perfect. But there is still a strange charm in the blurry, messy, un-instagrammable pictures. Bad lighting, awkward tilts, and just the rawest expressions of your subjects may not make it to the feed directly but end up becoming moments you all laugh about even months later. Such recollections aren’t then just visual aids but reminders of the exact atmosphere you were in. You can recall more than just the sights and sounds from that moment.
While fun and inclusive of its own perks, being the photographer friend unfortunately does come with its own set of frustrations, the kind that move beyond just a lack of storage. Despite being present, you kind of always end up feeling outside the moment a lot of times. You are participating, but also always observing and being on the lookout for the perfect candid moment. This feigned urgency that comes with wanting to document everything might feel a bit much at times. But honestly, this hyperawareness of how time is always slipping with no mercy makes you just keep clicking. Just one more picture. Even if it means coming across as annoying. It honestly has become second nature to me, however, that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when I don’t feel like just not pulling out the phone at all. There would be times I would catch myself mid-clicking and ask whether I am really trying to have these shots as genuine keepsakes for my friends and I or is my vision being altered again by what kind of candids would work for social media too. Those are the times where I remind myself why I do this in the first place. I do it because I know the images will outlast the eyerolls and the irritation. I do it because I want to send out as many anchors to the fleeting moments of this fast-paced life where planning for the hangouts usually consumes more time and energy than the plan itself. It is the hope that I am giving some form of permanence to moments I know I will come back to later.
So, sorry to anyone who has been made to have food that’s slightly colder, piss off a cab driver with the wait, or just been annoyed by my constant stubbornness to be like a middle-aged dad who will film everything till the cows come home. You are welcome for all your candid shots! :)