My experience in life is one whose hallmark has been change; different homes, new towns, myriad friends come and gone. With each change and the attendant loss of that which gave me comfort; stasis and permanence, shards of my life slipped through my hands much like granules of sand. Time and distance propelled the granules to escape no matter how hard my memory wanted to hold them.
At a point I discovered the camera and the ability to memorialize the memories as they occurred and I was then at least outfitted to capture them before the inevitable ‘fade’. Now I can, often through my own bittersweet process go back; often painfully, and view the film or digital files of homes and towns, friends and lovers- that have stood still as I moved along and away from them.
But what is important here is my life is now chronicled on film and the camera. Mine- or that of others, has given me that opportunity to safely secure my ‘visual’ past. I can share my chronicle or I can view it as solitude- with a smile or tears and often both. But it has been the camera that trumps my fading memory; my memory can no longer play tricks on me.