Keep a Camera Close By

I took this photograph in 2013.

At the time, I was simply captivated by the colour. The bold gold of the petals, the dark centres like quiet anchors, the unexpected velvet red nestled below. I pressed the shutter because something in me said, this matters. I did not know then that what I was really capturing was evidence.

Evidence that I had stood there. That the air had been warm. That my eyes had paused long enough to notice beauty.

Photographs have changed. They are no longer merely records of events or proof that we attended something. They are markers of presence. They say that I lived here. I noticed this. I breathed in this colour. Photography insists that a moment is worth holding.

This image is not extraordinary in the grand historical sense. It is simply flowers. But they bloomed once and not again in quite this way. The light fell just so. The leaves leaned into one another in quiet companionship. And I was there.

When we look back at old photographs, we are not only remembering what we saw. We are remembering who we were. The version of ourselves who paused. The version who cared enough to frame the moment.

Legacy is often imagined as something monumental. Yet sometimes it is a stored fragment of sunlight, kept safe in pixels. A reminder that our days were not invisible.

Keep a camera close by. Not to curate perfection, not to perform for others. but to honour the fact that you are here. That you have lived and breathed. And that even an ordinary garden deserves to be remembered.

Rebecca