Ever have a day when a past happy experience repeatedly floats into one's consciousness? This image is from today's looping travelogue; a winter day last year, on a 20-hour train trip through a desert. I don't know why the experiences of that particular day decided to manifest themselves today, and I am happy to let them flow.
The desert in winter is bleak and dull, which makes the colors of the sky and the shadows of the mountains more vivid and rich. The click of the wheels on the rail joints and the intermittent howl of the locomotive's horn at each road crossing were the cadence of peacefulness. Although the sleeper car is crowded, when I focus on myself and the scenery drifting past the window, it is a satisfying solitude. I loose all my thoughts of obligations and responsibilities so that I only have the sensations of movement and colors and warmth. The world comforts me. It was a wonderful day.
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but one day, in my photo 12 class, a former student came in and showed us his work. he had graduated five years earlier, and had landed a job with the new york times, working for a period in uganda. his work moved me to tears, and that's when it hit me. telling stories with photographs is so much more powerful than telling stories with words, at least for me. his photographs communicated to me on such a basic level, a level that transcends language or cultural barriers. it was then that i started to look into photojournalism. i read books like the bang bang club, shutterbabe, cried over the photos of kevin carter and dan eldon, and took off to the other side of the country to try my hand at this type of storytelling.
i'm actually going to meet up with ryan, that former student, when i'm in palestine later this month. he's in haifa doing a video project.