I refuse to be shamed for taking lots of photographs
I am living in the moment. Thank you for your concern.
Why am I knee-deep in embarrassment when I request someone to wait while I take a photo of something or when I ask someone to take a photo of me or when I ask someone to help me take a photo of something when all it takes is just a few seconds?
“Because you do it for social media, babe. To create the illusion of your perfect life and like all these pictures aren’t fooling anyone. yuck.”
First of all, shut up. There are 32,000 photos in my gallery out of which only ~231 (as of 30 June 2021) are on Instagram which I have accumulated over five years.
So many people kept telling me this and I believed it. I believed that taking photos is something teenage girls do because they’re obsessed with themselves (so much misogyny, ugh), and to be better than everyone I need to be dismissive of people who take a lot of pictures, when in fact, I love taking pictures of not just myself but objects, corners, flowers, people, food and everything else. Now am I brilliant at it? No. I just use my phone but do I have to be brilliant at it? Absolutely not.
I am just here documenting things so that I can go back and see what I was marveling at 2 years ago and what are we if not a bunch of memories strung together? And if someone wishes to spend 5 minutes of their time getting a picture, I am an asshole for frowning upon their excitement about something.
Think about it. A person in a very wabi-sabi mood finding joy in some mundane irregularities. Honestly, feeling jealous of their zeal for life. They're being able to see something that a lot of people can’t — the beauty in everyday things and some of us are just out here to ruin it for them. Really, this is just the pits and from a perspective, it looks like this,
“Oh I don’t think this is special so you also can’t think this is special and now I will proceed to make you feel bad about it while I am drowning in unhappiness myself due to personal reasons & I can’t bear to think that some people may actually be okay.”
Wabi ‘the elegant beauty of humble simplicity’
Sabi ‘the passing of time and subsequent deterioration’
And that whole narrative around “Oh she takes so many photos, she needs to live in the moment.” Unpopular opinion but in those 3 seconds the moment is not passing. She is very much in the moment and she is mindful of it because she felt the need to capture it. Maybe you weren’t in the moment.
This brings me to the core mindset of this thought, the need to disparage others to feel better about oneself.
Disparagers have already made their lives miserable so their next step is to make other people’s lives miserable and if you’re around one of them, distance.
We are losing touch with ourselves because we are constantly being watched. Apple Music is telling all my friends I am listening to Romey Singh, Surjit Bindrakhia, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Olivia Rodrigo and Ash King so I switch it up a bit and listen to Glass Animals, Chet Faker, Drake and Jagjit Singh to ensure I have some depth. What is the judgement?
Why is the judgement?
I am conditioned to believe that I am perceived cooler if I act like I am above everything. I am not above everything. Yes, I know the sun sets everyday but I am here today to see it and I will capture it and I will capture it everytime I see it and not be guilty about being such a girl.
I am not above everything and if I can feel elevated by these small time events, life is going to be great.
So let’s drop the act?
Do you have the privilege to be able to see things differently? The privilege of milking joy out of mundanity? The privilege of an appreciative bent of mind? The privilege to collectively process the several oddities of life as something worth documenting?
If yes, quit feeling embarrassed because there is absolutely nothing embarrassing about being a happy button shining just the way you like (I love you, Dua Lipa).
For all disagreements & grievances, feel free to reach out to me. And for invitations to photowalks, feel even freer.
Cringe is what makes me feel alive. Also, if you have the confidence to make a dancing reel, please help me catch up with you.
If you have any suggestions about my writing, find me here
.
