Great Quotes in Photography (with commentary)

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
~Henri Cartier-Bresson

This particular quote hit so close to home. I had taken a hiatus from serious photography for a couple of years, and it was only about 2 years ago that I got the inspiration to resume this particular passion.

I hadn't been in the darkroom for some years and decided to take a college course in black and white photography, as a refresher. Having purchased a new SLR, my last having been destroyed in Europe some time previously, I set out to shoot my first roll for class. A minor darkroom mishap resulted in part of the roll being fogged. Looking through a loupe on a light table I found a few pictures worth salvaging. Among them the wooden door at Mission San Juan Bautista that graces the portal to my website.

A few months ago I returned to the same spot. Thinking to take a color slide of the same object, with the intention of doing a better scan. The shots I got were good enough. If anything, my technical skills had improved. Yet they weren't the same. Even shooting an inanimate object, time of year was different. Surrounding foliage was less lush. Time of day was not quite the same. I was changed.

Even an object, exists in a moment in time. And you can never step in the same river twice.