Courtesy of John Cohn
Although I know him mainly as a colleague, I like to consider John Cohn a friend. I see him only rarely, not counting watching him during the run of the TV show The Colony, as he lives out east. But his passion for life, his work, and science is motivating. There are too few people like John.
If you happened to watch The Colony, you may know that John lost a son a few years ago to an accident, a devastating loss any parent can appreciate, and one which most of us, fortunately, have not had to experience. John now distributes small stones bearing Sam’s name all over. He placed one in the water filter on the show, and I’ve seen images of “Sam Stones” in places like the Middle East. It’s a beautiful way to honor his memory.
This morning, I saw the photo of Sam in a post by John on Facebook. Today, Sam would have been 18. Looking at the picture, I was moved, and I began to think about what photography is and what it means for us. And, why we photograph.
Ask me this on any random day, and I’d tell you I use photography to express my inner artist. I strive to make images that move people, that express the beauty of our world, the joy in someone’s eyes, a smile. It’s an art form that demands technical knowledge and subtle attention to detail. It’s creative expression in the camera settings, the angle of the shot, the available and artificial light, and the limitless ways to form the pixels in post-processing.
But photography is much more. It’s a gift we’ve been given by the pioneers who created this medium, by the countless photographers, chemists, engineers, and inventors. I have known the story of Sam for a while, but today I was moved by his image. Today, Sam is not just John’s son, he’s the boy in this picture. Today, I know Sam in a way I did not yesterday.
Photography is how I know my grandparents, all of whom died before I was walking. I know my mother as a child with a doll because someone took a picture and that picture survived.
I know my father as an infant from a time when photos were certainly not ubiquitous.
Dad as an infant in 1916
Certainly, photographs take us places and show us other people, other cultures, wars, catastrophes. They show us magnificent vistas, oil gushing from the ocean floor, rover wheel tracks on the surface of Mars. But they are personal, too, and maybe even more, they tell the stories of our lives. They will provide our future generations a glimpse into who we are. Humankind has never had this before.
Visual arts are uniquely human and ancient. Photography was probably inevitable. Photography today is truly everywhere. We don’t need to remember to bring a camera – we have our cell phones. Cameras were something you had to think about. It’s why you’d develop a roll and find pictures from last year’s vacation that you forgot were still in the camera. Today, we snap a dozen shots of friends and upload them to Facebook or Flikr before going to bed.
Yes, we photograph for different reasons. We want a beautiful print to hang on the wall. We want to capture memories of a wedding or senior year. We want to show our friends what they missed when we went to the beach. We want to remember some happy time in our life.
Or, we just want to introduce the world to Sam, a loving son who left us way too early.
