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Ava Araujo

English 101

Professor Ferrara

22 September 2020

Living to Remember the Moment

To live in the moment is rare these days. Everyone wants to record, capture, and take

pictures to remember and look back on that moment later on. Some people look through a lens at

their life in front of them. They waste their time trying to capture a moment to look back on

instead of simply enjoying the time they are being given. I think a lot of people can agree this is

what they do as well. But when it is not your moment, when it is a moment so picturesque it is

essential you get this memory caught forever, that is where Photography Discourse is brought

into the mix. Being fluent in the Discourse of Photography is something that has chosen me

instead of vice versa. You learn so much about time and its delicacy, peoples emotions being

caught, and where you were mentally in that moment.

I distinctly remember the day my sister got married. My best friend bringing a man into

not only her life forever but our whole families as well. October 10th, 2018, was a day filled with

emotions, from happiness to sadness, love and desire to love, to gratitude and cherishment. My

sister and I look back into every dusted photo album we can find. We pick up the maroon book

which is filled with the photos from ages 0-4 for me, 6-8 for her. We laugh until our cheeks are

bright red as we relive the scratchiness of the halloween outfits our mothers forced us into. We

argue about who was the cutest baby or who learned how to say “mama” first. All these photos

someone felt necessary behind a lens to capture, the lighting shining on us as the subject of the
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image, the sharp shutter of the camera focusing on us. This is why people become literate in the

Discourse of photography. So in 20 years, when you find the soul that your own is searching for,

you can show your life and how it is seen through other people's perspectives. At weddings, you

can look at a 24 year old woman standing at an altar and see the natural light of the sun at 7:00

sunset shine on her and remember the way you wrapped your hands around a machine that was

made for these moments.

There are many moments of the wedding I can recall so distinctively. As my ears pick up

the sound of the wind and the leaves crackle under my feet, I’m ready to record this ceremonial

evening. I listen to heels clack down the aisle to their seats, and notice the tissues they brought in

case of single tears. I can feel my camera in its case around my neck. I feel emotions coursing

through my veins of all sorts. Anxiety, happiness, love, fright, and nervousness in all directions. I

calm myself down by listening to the words of affirmation my sister and her newly wedded

confide in eachother. I capture the main subject of the photos, while having a background as

well. People cheering their champagne glasses to the toast by the best man, women checking

their makeup in their phone reflection, to anything as small as the table accents. Guests like to

ask me to take their picture, but I feel as if when you know you are getting your photo taken it

loses its meaning. It results in the loss of its purity and significance. “Can you take a picture of

the three of us?” asks Stephanie, a girl not much older than 14 or 15. “Yes, of course I can.” I

politely answer, although she could probably read on my face how I was not so excited as my

tone may have seemed. I can already see the picture in my head, it’s already been planned out in

the girls heads.

I wonder to myself whether or not photography will ever be a lead in its own role in life. I

want to encourage people to want to be fluent in the literacy of Photography. Weddings, which
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celebrate life, love, coming together, and much more demand to be recorded. They need to be

recollected one day. I look at my sister, mentor and best friend, standing in white silk, and I see

us playing in the backyard of our tiny house in Oleander, CT. But I can't picture us like this alone

from my own recollection of life. I had a photographic echo of a photo tattered in the corners I

kept in an old box at home, because someone felt it was necessary and important to remember

these moments one day. They knew that life was precious and short, and memories needed to be

remembered. At the wedding reception, the aroma of sparklers fills my nose and I get excited to

pull my camera out. Everyone is dancing, in their own peace of mind with their person of choice.

A man approaches me from behind. “Do you ever want someone to take your picture for once?”

he asks. I shortly replied “No, thank you. I like to be behind the camera instead of in front of

it.”. This was an ideal example of how something posed, planned, and drawn out takes away

from my love for pure photography.

The Discourse of photography becomes vital to remembering life and moments that

should be refused to be forgotten. I chose to bring the Discourse of family in my literacy

narrative as well, as it covers many different memories and treasures a wedding can hold. The

different cultures that come together at weddings; the family, the friends, and everything under

the sun, are all captured by the beauty of photography. I trust this is why being fluent in the

Discourse of photography is so important. It can capture the beauty and purity of any other

discourse you are fluent in. It can teach you new ways of life. It can allow you to see yourself

and your life in a deeper perspective.

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