Life Through a Lens

Sinead turned the last photograph over, sighing softly, wondering if this would be the one she needed. She had taken many, but not one had captured what she had been trying to capture for her scrapbook. She was going through a lot of changes right now, and she wanted to document her life so far. She wanted to capture her entire life in just one photograph, the beginning, the changes, the ending which would come one day. She was a good photographer, but this had been a challenge for one so young. She needed this photograph, though. She craved it. If she could have one photograph to represent her whole life, a part of her would be complete.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the final photograph, and she knew she had it. This was the one, the photograph she had been trying to take for years, ever since she had first picked up a camera and fallen in love with it. She held it to her, every single tiny detail meaning something phenomenal to her.

She remembered taking it. She had been in the sunny little meadow for hours, trying to work out how she was going to go about her task. There had been a slight breeze which had gently touched at her dress as she sat amongst the daisies, looking at her camera, playing around with the settings for the tint and the zoom and the quality. She had been obsessed, a desperate urgency burning deep inside her, telling her that if she was ever going to achieve that picture, it was going to be today. She couldn’t let this opportunity go.

She knew that she had picked the correct location. She realized that as soon as she arrived, the wind gently brushing around her. This meadow held a lot of good memories and some bad ones, too. That was why she had chosen it for her location. She had lived in the small nearby town for her entire life, and picking this location had summed up a lot of her life story. She had come down here when she had been a baby, her mother pushing her in her pram and carrying her around to see all the different flowers. The whole family had had picnics there. When she had got a little older, she had come down here to have many exciting adventures, lost in her own imagination for hours. Then, she had gotten older yet, and experienced her first kiss sitting under the stars in this quiet little place. It had been the meadow she had returned to when things with that boy hadn’t worked out, and she had sobbed for hours. She had returned a few weeks later with her best friends, and they had camped out here and cheered her up. There were so many memories, and if she looked and listened closely, she could almost hear the sound of her laughter and her sobs from all those years ago.

She looked at the photo closely again, holding it up to her face, looking at where the bright green of the meadow was cut off by the deep green of the trees. The contrast of the light and dark had been exactly what she had been aiming for. She needed to represent all aspects of her life in this photograph, and she thought that this contrast had done its job perfectly. The bright colours of the meadow blending into the blackness of the trees. Life beginning and then life ending. It was perfect. In her eyes, the light of the sky above the dark trees represented what was after death, and she liked the way that the blackness of the trees was the smallest section. There was more light than dark, and she thought that was a good description of her life. She had been through bad times, just as everyone had, but she had come through them and seen light again. There was always something to look forward to, hiding behind the bad times.

She had specifically counted how many flowers would be in shot. Each one represented a new life. Her new cousins, her nephews and her nieces. In front of the blackness of life’s end, she had shown new life sprouting up in all sorts of unexpected places. There was no fixed pattern to them. They simply appeared wherever and whenever they wanted, bringing delight along with them, much like all the new family members she had come to meet. She had deliberately positioned herself in the middle of all of these little flowers, each little symbol of new, beautiful life.

Finally, there was the portrait of her contained within the picture. She had spent ages upon ages wondering how she was going to represent her entire life, past, present and future, with one pose, in one single photograph. Her outfit, surprisingly, had been the easiest part for her. The dress, her favourite dress, had been given to her by her grandmother and she had been wearing it the same night she received her first kiss. It had been a little longer on her then, but it still fit around the middle, and that was all she needed to get in the photograph. Her shoes were special too. She had always had an affinity for polka dots, and ever since she had been little, she had always owned a red pair of shoes decorated with white polka dots. Every time she grew out of a pair, she would receive a new pair for her next birthday or Christmas, whichever was closer. It had become somewhat of a family tradition, and she knew she had to include that in her photograph. The memories of Christmases and birthdays were a big part of her life, and made her realize exactly how much she loved her family, faults and all.

Her favourite part of her pose was how she had decided to stand. She liked the way she had managed to represent exactly how she felt at such a crossroads in her life. In a few months, she was going to college, leaving home, making a new, independent life. That was why her left leg was pointed to the side. She, in her mind, was walking away, walking towards her new life, and her freedom. Her right leg remained in the same place, facing the camera. To her, this represented a lot. For a start, the fear inside her, which made her want to stay at home and never leave. Her foot in the photo stayed where it was, anchored to the meadow, just how she half-wanted to stay. However, she gave herself hope. She made sure her left leg was pointing towards her stationary one – she would always have a home.

She looked at the photograph in her hands for a very long time. It was so precious to her. After taking it, she hadn’t bothered taking anymore. She somehow knew that she had it, although she hadn’t realized how successful she had been until she saw it like this. The room was darkening around her, but all she wanted to do was look at this photograph, thinking about everything it represented. Life, death, hope, adventure, fear, sadness, happiness ... everything was contained within this little picture.

She opened her scrapbook, slowly turning the pages past many pictures of her as a baby, a child, a pre-teen, a teenager. Her on her first bicycle and then her in her first car. Her in kindergarten and her at her graduation ceremony. So many memories, so many opportunities, so many changes, all concluded in the final photo she was carefully pressing in now. She looked at it for a moment more, and then gently closed the scrapbook, placing it on the desk beside her bed. It would be coming with her to college in the fall, and it would be going everywhere with her afterwards.

She placed her hand briefly on the cover of the scrapbook, and smiled.