There are moments in life too perfect not to capture. The camera allows us to eternalise these moments, to solidify their presence in our memories.
It features as poetry for our eyes, as images that forever capture a moment that we will never experience again.
Recently, I have been obsessed with the ephemeral, that which lasts for a brief moment in time. But is this not most of human life? Are we not always imprisoned in a world that is seeped in its immediate, the present moment, the now...
We cannot ever escape the now, the present, for we are stuck in this seeming liminality between the past and the future. For Aristotle, the present is a seeming impossibility, something that cannot be. For the present is the infinitely small line between what has happened and what still needs to happen. This makes it incredibly hard to discern when we are in the moment, because it never stops, it is always already beginning to move to the future.
The present moment, in which I cast the present still life, the room that presents itself to me in the present, throws itself to my camera lens. It allows me to perceive it, in its shortlived nature, and I act as the poet, the writer that tries to pen down the moment that only I have access to.
But this is a double-edged sword, for as soon as I try to capture the moment, to write poetry of the infinite moments between the past and the present, it is already gone.
As soon as I try to capture the present, it is already the past.
The future does not hold much more solace or comfort. For when I try to look forward and grasp that which has yet to happen, I am returned to the present only to realise the moment is stuck in the past to which I have no access.
When we try to capture the present, it gives us a false sense of security that it can be eternalised in poetic forms.
However, it does not allow me to capture it. It forever casts a shadow under which I can merely attempt to delude and escape the present in search of the future.
It forever escapes my grasping...
For as I try to write poetry, or try to apply paint to the canvas, or try to pencil and shade the future and the present, I am already thrown into the past.
The room that I was stuck in presented itself in the most beautiful moment, the everlasting present moment. Yet it escaped my grasp, it forever pushed itself into a direction that I could not understand.
For trying to understand is inherently a subsuming, an amalgamation of what is not with what is, and in the infinite present moment, the liminal space between what was and what will be, we might begin to find and cultivate poetry. But we will never be able to capture the fleeting moment.
I hope that you enjoyed these musings and the photographs of a room as the still life. We had an amazing experience visiting this room in its infinite presence. I hope that it imbued you with the same sense of serenity.
For now, happy photographing, and keep well.
All of the musings are my poetic own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm lens.