To Life,
Without a doubt in my mind, I am a horrible photographer.
Out of all of my friends, I am the last person they ask to take a photo. If I needed to make a comparison, I would call the photos I have taken of my friends similar to a Facebook mom’s. I can never get the right angle, and the lighting is always either too bright or too dim, but if they ever, for some random reason, needed a photo of them blinking, I know, without a doubt, I could do it perfectly—and unintentionally.
I think of the photos I would take of my friend every day, almost without fail. Each day, she would come over to my house, and I would take a photo of her. In each photo, I miraculously found a way to catch her doing everything, from blinking to leaning forward in strange positions to angles that were clearly way too high or too low.
I think of the photos I took on New Year’s Eve. I remember we were listening to Lady Gaga songs way too loud, waiting to be called for the ball drop, and that was taking way too long. It was at that moment that I decided it would be perfect to take a photo of me and my friend, but I was instead met with a photo of her mouth stuffed with food.
I think of the photos I took of my trip to Chicago. An endless night spent stuck in the hotel our parents had left us in. With nothing but the sky and each other to talk to, we decided the best way to pass the best way to pass time would be to take photos of one another. While hers turned out slightly awkward, in the end, there were some that were still cute. Mine, on the other hand, can only be described as awkward standing and half-blinking smiles.
Without a doubt in my mind, I am a horrible photographer, but, without a doubt in my mind, I love each and every one of those photos.
For every million and then some tries I take to take a single half-good photo, that’s one in a million and then some moments I get to spend with the people I love.
In my mind, they become so much more than a picture: they become a moment.
A moment spent with the people I love. A moment where I felt at peace. A moment where I was happy.
A moment I can step back into—to embody who I was back then, to feel that rush of joy and adrenaline I had felt.
A moment I can look back upon—to smile at the fact that it happened and laugh at the horridness of it all and do it all while we’re together.
A moment that was brought to me by you, and for that, I can only help but cherish it—for it is a moment I can say I have truly lived.
Love always,
Alysse
