A Word from an Amateur

A WORD FROM AN AMATEUR

I photograph my subject because
I reflect critically
on what I would like to remember
in the future
and remind my friends,
ones near and dear
and share the thoughts,
faces and scenes gone by earlier.

I attribute this to my inner desire –
a secret passion
to treasure an occasion,
an event, a function
or an adventure or a milestone
for posterity and future generation.

The moments we have now
at times are for granted taken
and soon forgotten
by the next dawn
yet the photographs we take
come in handy
and brings us back a memory
when we have a sudden urge, a wish
to momentarily re-live the past -
browsing through
an old and dusty photograph album.

Vision is fore-sight,
a tomorrow I have never seen;
A photograph is news today, and history tomorrow.
It is a memory of life you have lived today.
The very moment you trigger the shutter,
the moment you click, the image you capture
becomes history;
and you may call it nostalgia
a generation later.

I am just an amateur,
I do not seek grandeur
But what I do believe is
that a photograph always re-lives its own past.
A photograph remembers you as you are today.
A silent memory, a picture frozen in time.
Today it stands forgotten
but it could be a future work of art.
Whether Black & White, Sepia or in Colour
It is something to delve into in times ahead
When years from now it will seem it was just yesterday.
And that's what I think photography is all about today.

Tony Fernandes