Picture Perfect!!

Pictures - a frame of time. Have we ever thought of a picture considering it to be a frame of time, time that we have lived. As usual, we do not notice things around us unless we are made aware of them. How many of us remember in detail what we see in a picture that we carry all around: be that a picture of someone, or something that we hold dear. We look at what we want to, but forget what completes the picture.

Ask a photographer (not someone who takes pictures) and you will get the answer to your question "What is a picture?" I am no photographer and I am no expert, but I felt that we always miss one thing or the other. It came to me when I was talking to a very dear friend of mine about a picture of ours taken over 20 years back. All I remember from that picture was her and me in it with some of our other friends.

Thinking about it now, what makes that picture is not just the two of us, it is everything that gets captured in that frame. That is what puts life in a picture. That is when we talked about what we did back then and how we were. That is why I believe that a picture is time that we have lived, time that has stopped, time that makes us remember that we existed with someone. So rather than saying "you and me are in that picture", we started talking about the place, the happenings, expressions, surroundings and all other details we could recall. While we were on it, it brought back the memories of that time.

I make an interesting observation while I think about it. The picture that was taken when we were somewhere around 4 or 5 years old, after 20 long years, I felt as if I was there. That is the beauty of a picture. It takes you back in time.

I believe most of us will feel this way when you talk in detail about an old picture. It not only brings back memories, it brings back people. I will always say we do not capture pictures, we capture time.

I recommend the movie One Hour Photo if you want to really look at pictures in a different way.