What’s Real
Revelations I

There was a particular moment during my cultural excursion to South America that I distinctly remember. Our itinerary for two days was to stay at a beach hostel and visit the coastline of Nicaragua. As dusk prevailed, a potent thunderstorm brewed offshore and slowly made landfall. As I just started photography back then, I had an urge to document everything; I spent almost the entire evening taking long exposures on the balcony of the lightning, while everyone else was lounging, chatting, and ebulliently trying to knock coconuts off the trees. When I was trying to find an outlet to charge my camera battery, one of our group mentors approached me and said, “you know, without electricity, none of it is real”. In that moment I thought I understood what she meant, but the reason it continues to resonate with me is because of a clairvoyant feeling of how technology would become a dominant factor in the years to come.

As we get more and more involved in a digital life, e.g. computers, cell phones, the internet, and spending countless hours just sitting passively in front of a glowing screen, we never question, what is the purpose to this? We utilize technology to do things faster, we use apps if there was any hint of benefit, and ironically all this convenience may be slowing our brains down. Digital photography has allowed us to capture a seemingly infinite amount of images with little to no processing. Because of this, I always have been focused on documenting the experience. I try and capture every moment so I can re-live it later and have a record, but I completely miss out on the experience itself.

What was real in that very moment, which isn’t represented by the two dimensional photograph above, was the gusts of the wind, sound of thunder and rain, flashes of lightning, and my existence. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by superfluous media, I reflect back at that moment and what my mentor said, and remember to not live life through a screen, or spend life staring at screens, or trying to portray myself on a screen, because it isn’t real.

The only things that matter, the only things that are real, is my memories, my experiences, and the impact I leave in this world.

June 16, 2012 | Travel Stories