Keep Me — Protect Me — Share Me — And I Will Live Forever
(The Warm Embrace Of A Memory Shared)
Every few years I like to share this old Kodak TV gallery commercial. If you’ve followed me for any length of time you have probably heard me talk about it. It’s very moving and does a better job of expressing the importance of photography i can. But still I try…
This is probably the deepest thing I have ever written (or tried to write) and I hope everyone who reads it does so with an open mind.
This TV commercial is not about Kodak. It’s about memories and the feelings we get when we experience them. I want to talk about the FEELING — the memory of the warm embrace — that surrounds photographers when — for the first time, someone — somewhere, stops — dead in their tracks — and puts all their attention on a photograph that we created. It’s a drug stronger than heroin. It’s a an itch you cannot stop scratching. It has almost no equal. The closest thing I can think of is the feeling you get when for the first time, you make your lover happy — or for the first time you see your child smile — or even the first time you do something that saves someone else’s life.
Those are all big moments but none of them bigger (at least for me) than the feeling of causing someone to stop and take notice of an image I made and shared with the world.
That right there is why I (and I believe so many of you — even if you don’t realize it) continue to pursue photography and all its glory.
The feeling of the warm embrace of a memory.
Those of us who practice photography at its highest levels are high priests and priestesses of memory protection. We’re not photographers. We’re in the memory protection business. Sometimes, we protect memories for ourselves. Sometimes, we protect memories for others. But it’s all sacred and important and I hope you will never forget that.
When you see yourself as a memory protector, you will automatically elevate your work.
The warm embrace of a memory lives forever. Even if we’re no longer here to realize it.
This commercial ends with the words “keep me, protect me, share me — and I will live forever.”
If you’re remotely human, this commercial should tug at your heart strings. Keep it in mind when you make your next photograph and remember how important that moment might be to you or someone else.
Thanks for reading.
