Lens: Voigtlander color-skopar 35mm f2.5
Camera: NEX-7, ISO1600, f2.5, 1/20, raw
Tonight I slept for almost ten hours. I almost forgot the feeling of over sleeping. Over the last year the best I could do was to sleep for around six hours without interruption. But tonight Agata slept with her grandparents because we were out shooting a wedding the whole day, yesterday. And I didn’t have anything happening in the morning. So I went to bed, yesterday night, without setting the alarm, with the exquisite confidence that nothing was going to wake me up beside me being tired of sleeping.
Tired of sleeping! This concept is well worth a repetition.
But from the very moment I woke up, the day got into the usual ultra-fast spinning. Weekly Jacuzzi maintenance, daily photo and story publishing and posting, memory cards downloading, batteries recharging, lens cleaning, shaving, washing, dressing, dog walking. Then it was eventually time to get to my in-laws for lunch and picking up Agata.
Next thing I know, I was shooting again. This time it was a baptism. And this time, of the latest member of my family. So, for the first time, I had to shoot a family event, take portraits of my uncles and aunts, cousins and nephews, all people which have known me for either all their or my life. I find shooting my parents and family the most difficult task because I can’t really step back and look at them without seeing what they have been in my youth more than what they are right now.
Fact is, what I get in my pictures is not what I see, because what I see is not real, it’s simply the picture I have of them in my mind. I know that if I keep trying, shooting and shooting, I’ll eventually get rid of the “issue”, the mental image I have of each of them will eventually fade into the real persons they currently are, but the stake is high: in order for me to be able to shoot my family as I do with strangers I seem to have to loose the visual memories of them I bring with me from my youth. On the other side, if able to properly shoot my family I could create an eternal and beautiful evidence of what my family is today, something that we will all enjoy in the future, especially the new members like Costanza, the girl which was baptized today.
And I think that I’m getting into a higher level dilemma. The youth of the new family members requires that we let go our youth. I’ll have to let some of my memories fade away if this can help me construct new solid memories for my daughter, or for any of the other babies in the family. Costanza will not have any other memories of her baptism than these photographs, the testimony of all the love that surrounded her, and her mother, father, and grandparents will never be so young again, her older sister will never look as a baby as she did today.