A Photographer On The Margin

A Story by Urvika

It is about a photographer who suffers with short term memory loss.

Perhaps margins aren't the first thing you'd guess a photographer to look at. But the layout of the photograph on a printed piece of paper is not as big as the hearts of the people who they capture. Racial strife? Labor exploitation? Death row? I seek it all out. I point and click. But who knew that I'd get in with one of the gangs and develop the habit of drinking, more than a habit actually. Drinking to dementia....or was it the other way around? I'm a street photographer,I've been here from the world of black and white photos, seeing a shirtless guy behind the jail bars,to the era of happy moments captured in colourful snaps. My subjects were sometimes harrowing but the task of doing your job correctly protects you. Every morning I wake up to the sound,no,the noise of my wife cribbing....umm no, maybe it is my alarm? Uh, functioning without my coffee in the morning is next to impossible...or is it? So yeah, every morning I wake up to my mom nagging me about....about some work that has to be done. Every morning I see the rays of the sun illuminating the wall in front of me. Every morning I look at it and every morning it brings out the feelings from the deepest of the corners of my heart. I get up from my bed, move my fingers across the frame and release a thankful sigh. I turn the page to see the photograph of the day before yesterday. I was about to close the album as I hear the sound of small feet running on the wooden floor eagerly asking me from a distance if she can see the pictures with me. My brain might not have such a limit in which I'd be able to store all of my memories in, I might have clicked many deep photographs raising awareness but these photographs are different. They let me escape the margins of my powers of retention but the photographs in this album won't ever let me feel lost again. Every morning when I see the photos of my one day younger daughter, my wife, my work and my surroundings it....it makes me feel something, something nice that I don't really remember now.