a moment of sincerity

 

When I was young I had romantic dreams of being a photojournalist. Traveling the globe, telling the stories of the people I encountered through words and images. Such meaningful work it seemed to me; broadening people’s perspectives by allowing their vision to extend beyond their own backyards. Revealing the hearts of those elsewhere who perhaps look dissimilar, live very differently, and yet who carry within all the same hopes, fears and needs. I wanted to be the photographer who created images that caused people to stop in their busy-ness for a moment and really *feel* what it’s like to live in another person’s skin. I wanted to present compelling images with the capacity to free the viewer from narrowmindedness and allow them to feel just how connected to all living things we really are.

Well, it didn’t happen, I never did become a photojournalist. There are days when I wake feeling overly nostalgic, look back on my life, and think perhaps I missed my calling. I try to go easy on myself about it though, and trust that maybe there are reasons yet to be discovered for my traveling in a very different direction than what I had imagined all those years ago. But I think that might be me not wanting to admit I simply wasn’t brave enough to do the thing I knew inside I wanted to do.

So now I find myself literally in people’s backyards photographing their children. Is my life small and the work less meaningful than those grand romantic dreams of my youth? To be honest, some days I think yes, it is. And then other days as I peer through my viewfinder, hoping to reveal on film a moment of sincerity, I realize that I am doing the very thing I always wanted to do, just in a different way. I feel such hope when I look into the eyes of children, who are to me closer to the truth of life than us grownups. Somehow I believe that the act of photographing them is leading me to a greater understanding of myself. And who knows what might yet unfold with that kind of knowledge.

Maybe making heartfelt images of these wise little beings–photographs that might cause one to stop in their busy-ness for a moment and remember, is noble work after all.

 

~Cynthia