Photographs are memories. Some we create, and some we just manage to capture. She was all about capturing. To this day I've never seen her arrange anything for a photograph. She always captured the moment, for all moments were beautiful, and so was she.
Day after day I'd watch her walk around with the camera as she photographed anything that managed to catch her eye. Sometimes she'd roam for hours and forget to eat, so feeding her happened to be my job. On the days where I could tell she'd be staying out for long I'd go with her. Handing her a cup of coffee in the mornings and a couple of sandwiches during mealtimes.
Since she could never take pictures while eating, she'd always ask me to take a few for her.
"Go on," she had said. "capture anything that makes you feel."
I never really understood her, or what she meant by saying feel. I remember trying to walk around to see if anything ever made me feel. I never did. The first few times I tried I came back with a picture of leaves on the ground. When she asked me why I chose to photograph that I had no answer, so I merely shrugged and told her that I thought it looked pretty.
I expected her to tell me off about it, or at least look confused. But all she did was laugh, and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. Her laughter was somewhere in-between boisterous and tinkling, and then I knew exactly what I was going to photograph the next time she asked.
And so it had begun. Everytime she asked me to take a picture of anything I would take a picture of her. When I first did it she was shocked, until her face broke out into a smile and she couldn't help but laugh. The days went on and on as I captured her every single time, and there were even moments where she barley knew she was being photographed.
She would just sit and spend her time time looking around, observing her surrounding inch by inch. Sometimes she'd look at the people rather than the places. She always said that people were interesting, that they were different, unique. It intrigued her, watching people on and off the camera. But of course, she hated the fake smiles they put on.
"A smile is meant to convey, not deceive."
It's one of the reasons she never photographed people who knew they were on camera.
We were laying on her bed one day, she needed a break so we decided to stay in. It was on this day she told me she never actually looked at the pictures she'd taken. I still didn't know how to respond when she dropped bombshells of information on me. It was the first time I had ever made a suggestion, and I have no regrets.
"Let's look at them together then."
Her smile was almost shy this time, I had never seen her shy. She agreed.
We had spent the rest of the evening looking through the pictures she had taken, and the ones I had taken of her. I still never understood what she meant by feel. For her pictures had ranged from abandoned playgrounds to clear blue skies.
In a desperate attempt to find anything I could connect with, I began to frantically flip through the pictures she had taken. I looked and I looked and I looked, then I finally stopped. I wasn't sure what expression my face had held, but a light blush had dusted her cheeks.
I looked back and forth between her and the photograph. Her and the photograph, of me.
I had captured her when she wasn't looking, and she had done the same to me. Photographs are the memories we capture, and this memory was sweet.
But nothing could have been sweeter than what we shared in that moment, for it could last forever, and we'd still feel no need to photograph it.
