It is always source of amazement how much interesting information is out there on the world wide web. Today I clicked on a blog by Amy Stein I had bookmarked for some long forgotten reason. One of her posted concerned another blog “The Photograph Not Taken” This blog is a collection of essays written by various photographers about the times they DIDN’T use their camera. It provides insight into the thoughts and feelings on a most personal level in some ways more revealing than a photograph itself would have been.
The entries got me thinking about the images I let get away. Most were missed due to my own hesitance of approaching strangers and risk revealing too much about myself.
One particular photo I wish I had taken was of an old man and his wife at the NC Zoo. It was around the same time my mother-in-law was dying of lung disease. So when I saw this old man with a hunched back and grizzled features, I felt his pain seeing his wife struggle breathing with the aid of an oxygen tank. I knew she couldn’t have much time left and I thought about the years they must have been together, their trials and tribulations and of how painful it would be for either of them to lose the other. I could have approached them, offered to take their photograph but hesitated to intrude into their lives. In retrospect I wish I had risked it. That photo would have been a gift to the ones left behind, it would have been a simple reminder to the grandchildren of the day with grandma and grandpa.
It’s been said a photograph is as much about the photographer as it is the subject. Sometimes a photograph NOT TAKEN is all about the photographer.
Below is one shot of the old man with a partial view his wife’s back on the right. I wish I had had the courage to say something to them. To connect on some higher level.
