About A Camera…

I’d always wanted to own a camera. Years of being the unofficial photographer at my parent’s home, using point-and-click film and digital cameras to capture intimate moments, made the yearning grow more potent.

Now, my parents have been the most consistently supportive people in my life ever! They encourage the weirdest shit I get up to; they always let me know that they’re proud of what I do, though I doubt they really know exactly what that is. They also happen to be the most brutally honest people I’ve come across.

I did a radio interview on a Maseru-based radio station back when I was an active rapper. While taking a drive the next day, I asked my father what he thought about it. He spent a few moments collecting his thoughts, then let me know that I sucked at answering one of the questions (I forget which one exactly).

That’s the type of people they are, and I love them dearly for it.

I finally got together enough money to buy my own camera about ten months ago. I’ve never managed to stop clicking since then; almost a year and three full hard drives later, the journey’s getting interesting. I had a joke motivation for buying the camera: I want to get girls, I confided to a friend. But really, the process of being able to capture moments, frame-by-frame, and have those moments exist beyond the fluidity of the present, is what intrigues me. In retrospect, it’s what fed into my decision to own a camera.

Words can capture moments too, but those words are fallible. One is bound to forget; to mix facts; to alter the chronology of events. The mind is tricky in that regard.

But pictures? Pictures render a moment to memory with an almost-criminal immediacy; they package a moment in a neat, focused, and honest bits…

**This is my first attempt at reflecting on the impact of visual culture, especially photography, is having on me and the society around me.