The oat rich smell of warm Irish tea fills my morning lungs. Swelling like the dry earth after a summer rain, my deep breath departs as a sigh. The grooves of my ceramic mug awaken every cell in my fingertips; the warmth radiating through them and deep into my palms. Wisps of steam roll over my closed eyes, soothing the tired weight that holds them shut. And so I sit, reveling in the small sensations while distant laughter echos in the back of my mind, a smile drawing at my lips.

There are moments I’ve experienced in life that were so perfect I wanted to memorize them. Every line, every texture, every smell, every taste, every feeling so beautiful I wanted to soak in it forever. A foggy, solitary hike that transports me a world away; laughing around campfires with friends late into the night; chasing wasps with flip flops; streaking full speed down a empty beach under the moonlight and kicking at sea foam with friends; being lulled to sleep by gently billowing curtains as the salty sea air sticks to my face and I feel rested and safe under the weight of my husbands arm across my waist; the nuzzling of a soft puppy snoot fitting perfectly under my chin as we snuggle in for a quiet morning reprieve. All of these moments… I cherish them. I memorize them, like a film roll in my mind.


I think this sentimentality is part of what drew me into photography. Having the ability to encapsulate a moment so I could not forget it - there’s a sense of peace in that. Even the intimacy of sharing something I found beautiful or powerful with other people - sharing a story in a single frame, it’s thrilling and invigorating. I love having this experience with a moment.


In one of my favorite movies, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” there’s this photographer Sean O’Connell. He’s the mold for the “photographer’s photographer” ( <- read that like “a man’s man”), constantly adventuring and seeking out the stories of life. He’s the photographer that only takes one moment, one frame, to tell a story - a moment that always evokes. A single contact sheet of his is full of weeks of adventure. (A contact sheet is essentially a print that the photographer has laid each row of their film on and developed - so you can see the entire roll and examine all the images and decide what to make a large print of. I digress). So, Sean, he even stands on the body of a small airplane as it flies straight into an erupting volcano so he can get the perfect shot at one point in the movie. He puts himself at the center of a moment, the heart of the story - and, oh does this make my photographer heart giddy!


Okay, let me get back on track now that you have a little more of a taste for the spirit of this guy. So, in this movie, the main character - Walter Mitty - works at Life magazine as a negative assets manager. The magazine is being taken over by a team that’s helping them transition from print to digital and are finalizing the very last physical publication. The whole premise of the movie is that Sean sent the perfect cover image to Walter to use with a note that said “The Quintessence of Life” but Walter lost the negative. Being bullied by the takeover team and pressured to find the missing negative, Walter has to throw himself into real life adventure - something he had only previously done in his daydreams - to find Sean and therefore find the missing negative. When Walter finally catches up to Sean who’s in the snowy Himalayas chasing a photograph of the rarely seen snow leopard, Sean tells Walter that he placed the negative in the wallet he gave Walter as a thank you gift for always taking care of his work and their years of a relationship. Walter had previously thrown the wallet away out of frustration. Thanks to his mother’s good sense, she took it out of the trash and saved it. (Yes, I skipped this part of the story because I may as well be telling you the entire movie, haha) The answer to the missing negative’s whereabouts finally solved, Walter heads back home to retrieve his wallet and answer the only question left - what is “the quintessence of life?” Or so we think. At this point in the movie, Walter has experienced a certain personal revelation. So, without looking at the negative, he sends it to print. At the end of the movie after the magazine has downsized and life has changed, Walter’s walking down the street and happens to see the last print publication of Life magazine on a magazine cart - an image on the cover that ever so perfectly captures the quintessence of Life. This moment, when Walter and the audience see the image gave me goosebumps and a lump in my throat.


That moment . . . that’s the power that photography can have. The gravity of an experience like that, well, it’s pretty darn close to real world magic for me. It’s what I love about the moments in my memory, that perfect encapsulation. It’s what I love about looking at a person and seeing their spark, then wanting to preserve that exact second to share with them. It’s remembering every detail… memorizing life like a film roll in my mind.