“Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.”
-- Albert Einstein
In a manner of speaking
This is the creation of energy
The capture of light, thought, emotion and memory
Preserved to inspire a future mind
Energy multiplied over through time
Eyes that stare forward from the past
A past that reflects a future shown
In the light that is yet to be captured
And I capture with a lens all of the light there is to see
A passing moment in time; a moment that will cease to be
Now a moment that will exist forever for you, and forever for me
Light made to art, by a spirit trapped but still so free
In this marvel of a jar, I can hold time tight
Everything that this moment is, by capturing the light
Time yielding its moments to an image, and halting its forward flight
To let us reflect on what was, and where we were, when the time is right
Call me a time traveler, and this box is my time machine
I am a merchant of memories; spending a currency of what is and what is unseen
What I gather and what I see in my world, and in my mind, and what has been
With love, and passion, and art and soul, I salvage your memories and dreams
So travel with me in this world, like the sands washing on to the shore
In waves always constant but never same; some in a whisper and some in a roar
Relive what once was; recapture the time, the youth, the feelings, and more
Created merely from light, to bring your memories to life, and let your imagination soar
“What do you see?” I asked her.
“I see… a light. But there wasn’t a light there before.” She stated with a tone of inquisitiveness
“Stars, and galaxies” I replied to soothe her curiosity. “What your eye cannot see, the camera, given enough time, can.”
“But why? Why can’t I focus on them hard enough to see them myself?” she asked.
“Evolution has provided you with incredible mechanisms for exploring the world around you, but only for what you truly need to survive. Your eyes are remarkable, but limited. Science and technology fill in where our biology doesn’t allow us to go naturally.”
She exhaled a thoughtful, “Hmmm…” as she pondered that. She cocked her head to the right and up once again at the sky, squinting with one eye and twisting her mouth tightly.
“I want to see more,” she demanded, “how can we see more?”
“Well,” I started as I considered my own limitations with the technology accessible to me and what it would cost to get something better, “you can see more with the right equipment, but this is all we have at the moment.”
She cast a disappointing glance at my camera resting steadily on the tripod. She reached to the shutter speed adjustment and opened it up to a 30-second exposure, then to the shutter trigger, pressed it and released it. The camera clacked its shutter open for her, and began capturing all of the light that it could see.
She grew a bit impatient waiting the full 30-seconds for the shutter to finish its cycle, then for the image to appear on the LCD.
She was surprised to see blurs of bright clouds which were barely discernable before, streaking by as if racing across the sky. A bright blue night sky, filled with thousands of tiny points of light and a bright, but shadowy glow from the moon in the southern sky.
“It looks like the stars would look during the day if the sun wasn’t so bright, doesn’t it?” She asked excitedly.
“It certainly does,” I replied with a smile.
She smiled at me, very proud of the results of her experiment.
“Remember,” I explained, “the stars that you see are very, very far away. It has taken thousands, or millions, even billions of years for the light that the camera is seeing to reach it and be captured. The stars that you see may in fact no longer exist, but we are seeing them as they were millions of years ago when the light we’ve just captured began its journey.”
I could see her wrestling with this. She is very bright, but for a child her age, this is a pretty deep concept.
“So, it’s almost like going back in time then?” she questioned as if she were simply sorting out her thoughts out-loud.
“Exactly. You can almost say that you, and I are time travelers, and our camera is our time machine, allowing us to see something possibly as old as the Earth itself.”
She reached out for my hand while gazing back up to the sky, her eyes still full of the wonder of this discovery. Taking it in, sorting the data, and allowing it to fuel the fires of her imagination.
“Time travel…” she whispered, “we can travel through time.”
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul
Through my photography, I hope to show the world as I see it
My lens is an extension of my eyes
And therefore not just filled with the light I capture
But reflecting back to the world
My passions, and my soul
I've never understood how people could take things like airplanes for granted. We can fly from city to city... we can fly from the Earth to the Moon. What humans have accomplished is amazing, but what we can still accomplish is infinite in its possibilities. We need to start giving ourselves more credit for the power within us.
If you want to change how people see you on the outside, you must first learn to grow and change from within.
Spread the love. Enjoy the love. Buffalove!
Only you can move
This worn and weary hull
Fill my sails
With words of hope
And carry me to the distant shore
Leaving these waters far behind
To drown in them no more
Tides that wash upon the sand
Crack and split the hardened land
Forced upon to prove its worth
Such as the time that wears my hand
Breaking body and spirit’s mirth
Crumbling which was strong and grand
Even mountains reduce to Earth
But the mountains always rise again
So give me rise
And give me hope
Take away my morning fears
Shone in the light of my younger years
And smooth my jagged edges bare
With breath, whispers and seductive sighs
With the grace of your touch
And the heat of your eyes
With all you give that means this much
And not by the flow of my tears
Your words become my feeling
Your touch becomes my sight
I hear your quiet breathing
End the wandering quiet night
I reach to find that in my mind
Memories and moments, never far behind
Like fingertips gracefully tracing signs
Seeing a feeling that will never grow blind
From footsteps on the floor
Coming to me silently
Dark and shapeless shadows
Begging me to give them more
Consuming me with visions
And stealing my eye
Feeling my way down this whitened road
The hard winds chill and sting with snow
Flesh and bones should never be so cold
When for you alone I would sell my soul
Just to keep this hope
The hope that in my heart I hold
Of warmth on cold nights
Passion beyond all my sight
Pouring love into my life
A wine too rich to drink it down
When the hull does crack
With salty brine in which I drown
And the heart does break
Sails lay limp on this windless lake
Your whispers won’t give guide for this trip
Nor save me from the icy grip
No life or love for life and love’s sake
Slippery rail now leaving from the living
Pulled under by the weight of lost and lonely days
The murky water of my past misgivings
This mind and soul, my final grave
Remember, no matter who you run into in life, they have a story. There is a reason they are who they are, and many times you simply cannot understand why.
Reserve your judgments, show tolerance, and offer the forgiveness from one loving person to another, that they may have never received otherwise.
This might be the trick, except I can't even watch the video without feeling vertigo.
Check out all of this awesomeness though.