Photos don’t capture the moment

I took this picture today, June 07 2021 around sunrise. When I looked at the picture on my phone, I thought to myself, “this picture doesnt do this sunrise justice”. I continiued to ruminate… Maybe I need to be a better iPhone photographer… I am sure there are tutorials and courses for that… Maybe I need a better camera. A real camera. Which one? How much does it cost? What things that I have now, could I sell to offset the spend? Maybe I should talk to my friends who are photographers…

And so on, heading straight down a rabbit hole because I thought there was something lacking in me. My skills were not up to it. My tools aren’t “right”. I started walking and sat with these feelings. If I was literally the best photographer in the world, and I had the best and most perfect camera for sunrise photos at the beach, how much better would my picture be? Could I really capture the moment perfectly?

Yes, my picture would be better. But no, I wouldn’t be able to perfectly capture the moment.

The camera is a marvel of technology, and photos are great artifacts of what’s around us. What we’re experiencing. There are amazingly skilled photographers who can use their art and science to create emotionally moving imagery.

But photographs can’t capture the moment. Photos are visual representations of those moments, and they help us remember them.

The camera can’t capture the heat and humidity. The sounds of the waves and the birds. The smell of the ocean. The background noise of people and dogs on the beach. They can’t capture what’s in our heads at the moment.

So, I look at this picture as a remembrance of all those things I was experiencing this morning. Not as a perfect capture of it.