I get asked this question frequently. Ok, maybe not so frequently, I get this question very frequently. This is not towards my specific services, but creative services in general such as photography. Apart from high quality (and expensive) gear, experience, and the post-production time to generate flawless artistic images, photography is a medium that goes back to the tall-tale of time. It frequents in history records used in textbooks, family heirlooms, and the daily happenings in the newspaper. Now, I’m not going to go in dwell in the first camera that ever existed but it is in my opinion, that photography is absolutely important, so much that there isn’t a device that practically doesn’t have a camera already built into it.  The easy access to instant smiles, out-of-the-blue incidents, and anything in between has somehow decreased expectation in the high quality art of portraiture. Regardless, everything with a lens and certain number of megapixels has a price, but do your memories have one?

Back in April of this year Victor (my hubbs) and I went to Guatemala to shoot a wedding as well for other business endeavors. We were able to spend time with family and friends as well as to catch up on good times (Victor is originally from Guatemala). It was our last night before our flight the next day and most of Victor’s cousins, uncles and aunts were able to join us for dinner at his grandparents’ house to grub on very delicious Peruvian dish our tia Ely prepared. It was a feast and as usual, everyone talked for hours around the dining table. Taking in the carbs fest, most of the cousins and I made our way to Abuelita Tini’s room. Everyone talked about how they were going to have Thursday off and how eager they were to have some time to rest. Out of nowhere, Lorena, (she’s practically Victor’s sister), opened a couple of old suitcases circa 1930’s, with so many photographs and polaroids to last you for years to scour through. There were photographs of Victor’s deceased grandfather, whom is considered to be the patriarch of the family, as well as the brothers (Victor’s uncles) when they were mere toddlers. Abuelita Tini kept photographs-postcards that Victor had sent her over the years with news and updates on his new life in the States. There hundreds of photos of her children getting married, graduating, living abroad, and having children themselves. Abuelita Tini also had pictures of her parents and her parents parents. I can’t precisely describe the feelings and experience, but I can say that I was able to learn more of Victor and the great-great grandparents of my future children. I was more than honored to have shared these moments with his family, I was humbled. I saw decades of love, growth, departures and the minutes in between events. Seeing, the expressions on Victor’s uncles face was beyond as they held the aged pieces of reflections in their hands.

Nobody interrupted the lighthearted moment with a scratched-record-of-a sound question, “who was the photographer?” or “how much was invested in taking the pictures?” Everyone who was in the room digging through the hundreds and hundreds of photographs was pondering about their parents’ lives and their beloved Abuelita Tini’s life. She gave them the gift to interpret those images that were representative of those joyous and somber moments. Victor’s family was able to have million-word conversations based on one picture after picture, drawing them closer than kinship. One tiny disheveled suitcase contained priceless amounts of treasured moments. What I would give for those missing pieces of history.

While tidying up shop at The Image Flow, my secondary workplace, an elderly gentleman came on by and brought in a rather large emerald green album with him. He quickly opened it and started to ask about making photo-copies of the rather crisp 8 x 10 black and white wedding photos. He stressed that those were the only ones in his possession and were of the utmost importance. He seemed to be of 70+ years of age and I was completely smitten with his images. I asked if he was in the pictures and he said that this was when he was marrying his sweetheart. They were about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and he wanted to have some of his pictures for everyone to see. As a wedding photographer, I took the pictures and started studying the lighting, the poses and the composition. But, then I started to imagine how beautiful it would be to look at these pictures as if they were mine 50 years from now. Oh how would the million stories since then would start pouring over my head…The sentimental value attached to these images outweighs anything else.

When I’m privileged with capturing a wedding day, I like to think that I’m not only aiming to make my bride and groom happy with each smile and candid gaze, but also for the future generations that will come after. The long-lasting records of photographs will always bring some sort of instant replay on our brains, where we can almost feel exactly as we did when we were there. Each embrace, tear or laughter caught on camera enables a longing for that moment even if it was for a split second. Photography is one of the closest things that we can ever get to time-travel not only for us but for those who will come after us.

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