A "Slice" of Time

When I used to compete in archery tournaments I had a teacher who once told me…”Better make sure before you release the arrow, because once you do release it that moment in time is gone forever…” I think photography is a lot like ‘releasing the arrow’. We can capture (strange word to use for taking a photograph isn’t it!) two dimensions on a piece of film or a digital sensor with ease…but did you ever stop to think you were also capturing time? Not many other art forms allow us to take 1/3000 of a second (or less!) and slice it out of reality to save forever. Even ‘moving pictures’ don’t allow such a precise ‘pruning’ of time. Try to recapture the same image exactly and even in the studio you can't...because that moment in time is gone forever.
So with the advent of photography came the ability to ‘preserve a slice of time’. I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty cool! Of all the things in our lives that we can’t control, time is the one unrelenting, never-ceasing force that drives us onward. Time is no respecter of persons and has been the subject of philosophical discussions since it began. No one can stop it (or even slow it down!) and no one escapes its march forward.
Think about all the photojournalists who have made such powerful statements by the use of photographs to capture a specific moment in time. In my era some of the most powerful statements were about the Viet Nam war. What about the photographs of 9/11? On a more personal note, what about the photographs of a loved one no longer with us? How unique that those moments in time can be preserved forever...and how easily many of them can bring us back to a specific time and place! Pretty powerful stuff!
So the next time I press a shutter button I hope at least a part of me can remember how lucky I am to have the ability to slice out that one precious moment forever. Who knows, maybe I’ll pay just a bit more attention before I ‘left the arrow fly’….