Barrington, Rhode Island

i drove down to providence today. barrington, actually. last time i came down this way, i saw a couple of beautiful little spots i really wanted to shoot. after dropping brian off at the airport this morning, i realized i had a car. it was a very warm sunny day for winter in boston, so the idea just sort of came together. to be honest, the urge to come down here was a quite out of the blue. so the entire drive down, i was sort of wondering if there was a reason i was coming down. i just didn't know.

one of the spots i remembered from the last time i was here was this little cemetery. the green grass on a sloping hill on the front side was just staggering the first time i saw it. so today it was where i stopped.

there was still fresh snow on the ground from last week. i was a little sad at first as i was thinking of the green grass, but it turned out the snow was just as beautiful and somehow more appropriate. the snow across the field of stones was for the most part quite pristine, but there were a few gravestones that had apparently been visited recently. i took a few shots with the sun going down, but felt that something was still missing.

about that time, a car pulled up. an older gentleman with a golden retreiver in the back seat parked the car, then he got out. i followed in his general direction, then paused when he did. he crossed himself in the catholic tradition, then spent a few quiet moments at the side of the grave. i then noticed the snow around him. it became clear that he had visited often. judging by the number of the footsteps and how recently it snowed, it seems clear that he visited once a day. that's quite often to visit a grave. had he lost his wife? a child? was it quite recently?

it was at this point i realized my dilema. do i put my camera to my eye and take a picture? this gentleman is dealing with something very personal. can i possibly take a photo of such a private moment? do i take possibly one of the best shots of my entire life?

i kept the camera at my side.

we've discussed this very thing in my photojournalism class. after seeing some of the photos by James Nachtwey, quite deservedly the most famous living war photographer, i've been thinking of this idea of photographing pain quite a bit more. and today's experience brought it up yet again.

i can easily understand why someone would refrain from taking a picture at a moment such as i experienced. i understood it before today. the harder perspective to understand is why you _would_ take a photo at such a moment. i know a stranger would likely find it invasive anytime i take a picture of them, and that feeling must be intensified greatly when they are remembering or experiencing pain.

on the other end of the spectrum, it's easy to take a photo of a momument or a sunset. there's no stranger, no personal interaction. they won't get upset. yet no one asks _why_ you take a photo of something like a sunset. it's obvious. there is beauty. there is character. there is something memorable.

i realized today that the scene i experienced is much the same as the momument and the sunset. the more difficult thing to do today would have been to put the camera to my eye and take the shot. but the question in my mind is no longer how _can_ i take a photo of something like that. the question has become how can i _not_.

Entry posted by byscuits at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)