I gently placed old John on the table top. His jet-black colour had long faded, replaced with only a soft grey hue. The camera strap that held him was ever so worn down, tiny threads fraying at the edges. The grooves where my fingers gripped ever so tightly had been molded as well, replaced with smoothened out areas.
I shifted my withered arm ever so slightly and caressed dear old John. Slowly I let out a sigh. It had been a long journey with him. I remembered starting off as an amateur photographer 62 years ago. Every photo I took was blurry. The images I captured failed to tell a story. I was ridiculed at the poor quality of photos that I had distributed. I had wanted to give up many a time, yet... somehow I never did.
Somehow over the years, John spoke to me each time I felt like giving up. He encouraged me, he supported me and he guided me. He taught me the secrets to taking photos and showed me the immorality of life.
As I staggered away from the table top, I slowly bent down to pick up an old album of mine. With slight difficulty, I lifted the book up and gently flipped the album open. Hundreds of photos stared at me as I stared back at them. The fading photos tenderly smiled at me as I slowly took them in. Some photos turned yellow as time took their toll on them. Time never let anyone go scot-free.
I slowly moved my old wrinkled hands across the page and gently patted the heavy old album which lay silently in my lap. I panned my gaze over every individual photo and a small grin started to spread across my wrinkled face. I sighed softly and I closed my eyes.
Every photo had a story behind her. Some were happy, others were sad but without fail they all captured every single moment perfectly. These photos lived on even as some of the people have passed on. This was the secret of immortality. The ability to carry on living even though you have long been buried six feet under. The ability to retain some semblance of memories and some presence in the present even if your soul has moved on to its next life.
People had always tried to uncover the secret of immortality, yet at the end of the day, so few of them ever understood the answer. The answer that has been standing right in front of them the whole time. To live on, all you needed to do was to live behind the memories for someone else to carry for you. Leave behind something that shows you in your rawest and most vulnerable moment. The moment where you couldn't care less about the world. The moment when you... were just you.
As with many of those that had been my subjects, it was now time for me to move on as well. I had lived to a ripe old age. There was no point in trying to delay the inevitable. I might as well take death by the hand and walk off into the afterlife with a smile on my face. Carefully, I positioned the camera lens at myself and set a timer.
A small smile spread across my bespectacled face. My breathing slowed and a sense of calm washed over me. My life started to roll before my eyes. The ups and downs. The happy and the sad. The laughs and the tears. I had a good life. I was glad to have such a life.
A soft click was heard. And with that I left my memories behind for the next photographer to discover...
End.
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"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved" - Ansel Adams
