Cameras don’t just fib, they steal.
They always “take a picture” and never give one.
They never seem able to take the whole picture.
I’m not sure about taking a piece of our soul, but when the camera clicks, it always leaves
When we encounter a vista, perched on a mountaintop or squatting on a broad, bright beach, we see the full picture.
If we take a moment to absorb it.
The waves wobble. The mountains loom, their details clear.
But in a photograph, mountains are nothing but sad grey smudges on the horizon.
The crests of the waves get lost in the deep blue.
The sparkling of the sun no more than an afterthought.
Nothing can quite compete with the lens’ in our eyes.
Cameras shutter much of the beauty out of the world.
That’s why we need painters:
To show us what was really there.
And capture how it felt.