The Soaring Souls

I don’t know how to connect this story or these scattered bits of stories, pieces that are free but still circle around the same sun: the tough memories left behind by the photographer.Yesterday, by chance, I came back to a piece I had written long ago, when I first started taking pictures with a small, simple camera that felt like a big treasure, and with a strong desire to learn and grow through the world.At that time, my dreams were more about success than about creating art; deep ideas hadn’t come to me yet, and I hadn’t experienced the sadness of being upset.Customers were just starting to come in, and I thought the work was about laughter and fun.In truth, most of the time, a photographer has to be happy, because otherwise the pictures lose their life; love needs to be poured into every moment when the photographer hides behind the lens to catch a moment that will never come back.

But now, with years of experience and the tired feeling of carrying my equipment, I have stories that stopped me, made me quiet, and forced me to think again about the meaning of photography and the importance of pressing the shutter.
I leave behind traces of these memories so they won’t disappear, even though they will never go away; the images are still clear, like they were made just yesterday.I could stay on the mother who wanted to take photos of her fifteen-year-old son, who was sick in bed and didn’t know much about the world around him; or the parents who came to get the last photos of their one-year-old child, who had died in a terrible accident; or the mother who received pictures of her three daughters, all sick, knowing those would be the only memories she had of them.These are heavy stories, but I won’t choose them for this piece.Instead, I go back to the one that shows the true meaning of the project “Alma.”