It is reprinted here with permission from the author

 

Looking at Life Through a Camera’s Lens

by Alison Cotter

 

It all started with a disposable camera.  That, and a set of simple instructions:  think of a person who is no longer with us and spend a week taking pictures of the objects, places, and activities that remind you of that person.  

 

It seemed the perfect way to remember Miss J, the beloved Sun n Fun preschool director who passed away suddenly in January, leaving so many Seal Beach families with heavy hearts.  My four-year-old was a Sun n Fun student at the time—too young to handle the concept of death, let alone a disposable camera.  The job fell to me and his older sister, who was a student of Miss J’s back in 2003.  

 

We visited Sun n Fun one quiet weekday afternoon, snapping away in the school’s deserted playground, capturing the strange solitude of empty swings, child-size gardening gloves piled near the school’s planter, and a lonely group of clothes pins clinging to the chain link fence where that day no dripping artwork hung.  

 

When we had finished the roll of film, we were done.  Which felt weird.  The age of digital cameras has made the idea of “being done” obsolete.  All of us are now programmed to check the image, delete what we don’t like, try again, over and over, until we get it right, get it perfect.  Yet, there we were, my daughter and I, at the end of our roll.  

 

And that’s when it hit me.  Life is a lot like a disposable camera.  In trying to sum up a loved one’s life with a single image, what we were really doing was summing up life itself.  Wouldn’t life be nice if we could check the image, delete what we didn’t like, try it again, over and over, until we got it right, got it perfect?  But, it’s not.  In life, each frame counts.  The first time.  

 

 

 “In inviting others to share in remembering someone they love, my hope is to create space for others to celebrate a life,” said Kimberly, who has been capturing images in memory of her brother, a Marine Fighter Pilot, since his death in a training accident in 2003.

 

Each participant picked up a camera from Kimberly back in June.  A week later, she collected the cameras, developed the images, and selected a single shot from each roll for the exhibit.  Kimberly also conducted informal interviews with participants, giving each one a chance to tell what the pictures—and the process—meant to them.  Excerpts from these interviews will accompany the photos.  “My hope is for the art exhibit to be an opportunity for us to remember those we love, learn one another’s stories, and to celebrate lives well lived,” said Kimberly.

 

Thanks to Kimberly, whenever I think of Miss J, I’ll think of a person who lived her life well.  I’ll remember standing in the Sun n Fun playground with my daughter and a disposable camera.  I’ll remember thinking, “All we can do is aim, shoot, and hope for the best.”  Just like Miss J.