Clutching my camera tightly, my hands are tense around the cold hard metal. The world is dark and scary.
Intimidating.
Offensive.
It offers no love to my lens. How can I create my art here? There is nothing to see. Nothing to embrace.
Everyone around me is blind, they don’t see what I see. The colourless shades of feeling lost to them.
Slowly I realise… I am free to choose. I wiggle my fingers.
I am free to move.
My hands. It hurts, but I can move. I feel the cold metal of my camera. Distant and foreign, alien in my hands.
Painfully, I change my lens.
Dark becomes grey, and hints of colour appear, caressing the shadows. Lines form and shapes reach out to touch my mind.
From the depths of coldness, I feel my arms begin to thaw.
Filtering through the emerging shades of grey, I search desperately for familiar patterns and shapes.
I’ve been here. I’ve seen this before.
In a dream perhaps.
Memories flash before me, of good times.
Memories of warmth and playfulness.
Something inside me stirs. I remember it was better than this. Was it a dream?
I move my arms. It still hurts, but less now. My camera reminds me of something.
Curiously, I change my lens.
A new world dawns before me. I see clear sky in the distance, shades of blue on the horizon.
It wasn’t a dream. I’ve been here. Once upon a daytime, there was colour.
I remember now, we played in the sun!
Memories arrive at the doorstep of my consciousness, knocking gently at the door of my mind.
I invite them in. Would you like some tea?
I feel anxious… or excited… or both?
Colour is returning to the world, and I can’t believe I doubted it’s presence. It feels like it was always there… underneath the grey… waiting for me to believe again.
The shape of my camera draws my attention. It’s just like my camera used to feel. I love this camera! We’ve taken so many amazing pictures together, been to so many amazing places.
Running my fingers over it’s familiar surfaces, my apprehension fades.
Excitedly, I change my lens.
The gold and pink and purple of the sky flood over the landscape with golden shades of everything. As I look for shadows, they scamper into crevices and under the trees.
It feels great to move again!
To breathe.
To see.
I reach up, stretching my body, allowing the golden light to chase the last few chills away. There are signs of life all around, where moments ago all was still.
Moments ago the world was grey.
Holding my camera gently, it shows me the world, in a beautiful spectrum of shadow and light.
It teaches me.
I can choose to change my lens.
