We could never seem to get the timing right, on anything, ever. Nevertheless when he asked me to capture him I jumped at the chance. When I woke up that day I was not disheartened by the lack of sunshine, something about the cloudiness was appropriate. The moment i pulled out my camera -there’s too many people, maybe we should do this a different day- he started to waiver. I just smiled and sat down in front of him, queuing up the first shot. -relax- as i began to take test shots and sort his lighting, i told him about the last time i had felt as uneasy as he was. Uneasy was not a small inanimate object, uneasy was a boy, wearing a black t-shirt and a watch too big for his arm. Uneasy was persistent, entirely too noticeable, and incredibly overbearing in a good way. His lips turned up at the corners. He protested it, tried to hide it, but even the tattered hat on top of his head couldn't hide the bit of sunshine that protruded from his dauntless face and body and with one quick shot it was forever taken captive in a picture.
He loves to be loved and my lens was infatuated with him. Art is to always be preserved, art is vital to the human experience, art mustn't be vandalized. However unfortunately, art wasn't always deemed indispensable. The curve of his shoulders the frame of the portrait, the creases in his forehead remnants of where others had tried to destroy. Even with the tatters, he was history and so the preservation would continue. The definition of important in terms of art, when looked up is, significantly original and influential, this piece of art lived up to every word in its definition. He could never be copied, no copy would be as influential. Museums will forever have to take turns displaying him in their hallowed halls. He would always grow to appreciate the beautiful blondes that spent hours right in front of him admiring his tatters, talking of restoration, trying to make him new again. They loved to fix, loved to try and make whole again. They never understood that although, that may be what he wants, it's not necessarily what he needs. Sometimes what he needed was the quiet brunette that sat on the couch in front of him staring for hours at what she thought so beautiful.
Printed on a canvas somewhere in the universe, there's a constellation made up in the image of him, the stars shine in different colors there. Like a song that's made to fade in and out of your headphones every noise and hum intrigues the listener more. When I raise my camera this time to capture the otherworldly miracle, I capture the collision of the stars in his constellation. It's nearly impossible to experience a shift in the universe, to see a mandela effect right before your eyes but what i encapsulated in my small camera was just that. I captured a constellation, joyous. A forgotten piece of art, elated. Although blurry, still proof. The laugh like the strum of a guitar and the feeling it gave like taking a shot in the dark, scary but fulfilling. He was the feeling of a shiver sent down your spine, he was the rain after a drought but he himself caused the drought. He was the universe and he had me candid. I silently told him to lie to me, to tell me that he loves me and this he did effortlessly with no hesitation and without words, it took nothing but a laugh for me to understand. One laugh, one shot, the capture of a universe inside the body of a boy. With this, the first and last shoot i would come to do of him, I felt my spirit grow, not by inches or feet but by lifetimes. He made me come alive again, he made me feel almost brand new.