I write to understand as much as to be understood.
~Elie Wiesel
Many people already know that in addition to being passionate about photography, I am also passionate about learning. Learning is not something I “do”, it is part of who I am. I don’t ever want to get to the end of a day feeling as though I haven’t learned something new, and be it large or be it small, I truly believe there is always something to be learned.
This year I had the chance to teach a special topics class focusing on subject matter that I feel very passionate about, The Holocaust. My passion was ignited in the middle of a Forensic Anthropology class I took in college, and I just haven’t been able to let it go. There are so many lessons that come from this tragic human catastrophe…so many lessons that we could learn, and yet, again and again, as a global society, we illustrate that we are not learning them. My students and I engaged in a semester of literature written by both survivors and those who did not survive, and while many may consider that overwhelmingly depressing to do, I am confident in the value of what we did with our time.
You see, it isn’t simply about studying the calculated murder of millions. It is about remembering the lives of millions. Because they are human beings. Because they have a voice. Because they each have a story. Because their stories DESERVE to be heard.
Because we MUST LEARN from their stories.
Ok, where am I going with this?
The other day, someone shared THIS link with me. It was a photographer’s blog about a letter she received from a client who was dying of cancer. The client was expressing remorse about canceling her session with the photographer and spending the money she would have spent on her photographs on what she considered frivolous materialistic items. The blog has created quite a stir. Some people believe it is fake, a photographer using a sob story to manipulate people into spending money on professional portraits. Others believe it is real, and that this woman, in her last days, was simply expressing to her photographer that she wished she would have placed more value on those potential photographs when she had the chance.
Regardless of whether is was real or not, the lesson I took from it was simply this.
You never know what is around the corner.
Make a point to not only take pictures, make a point to be IN the pictures. If you are like me, maybe you can relate. You are the one who is always taking the picture instead of being in the picture. Soon, you may realize you have left yourself out of your own family history. I looked at my children after reading that blog, and right then and there, I realized that if was gone tomorrow, I am not sure that my kids are old enough now that they would be able to really remember me without those pictures. My goal for 2012 is to let someone else take the camera (or at least get a good tripod), and get in the photographs, so my kids will have images that illustrate their memories.
Though I have been pondering on all of this over the last few days, it didn’t really occur to me to blog about it.
Until this morning.
I was sitting at my desk at school, taking notes about our upcoming statewide writing exam, finalizing grades, and getting ready to post lesson plans. The “Big Ideas” for the unit I am starting tomorrow come back to this idea of “truth”. How do we seek truth? Where do we find it? Is it in nature? Is it inside ourselves? Is it in God? Is it in reason?
As I chewed on how to convey this abstract notion to my students through our literature selections, I checked my email, and in it was a message from my Holocaust Educators Network list serve. There was a link to a video called, “Yes, That’s My Father”. I clicked on it because I was curious and because it was only 4 minutes long.
That video is the reason I wrote this blog.
A photograph, even that one you took with your iPhone, is valuable. It is worth more than just posting on Facebook. It is worth more than just sitting on your memory card or hard drive. It is worth more than the paper on which it was printed. It is priceless.
Through this story, I found truth. A truth that, at least to me, is undeniable.