by Chris Torgersen

Created on: August 13, 2009   Last Updated: August 16, 2009

I have always loved taking pictures. Whether it's getting the family together for a group photo or snapping shots out a train window as it passes by interesting scenes, I almost always have a camera within reach. I have always been a sentimental sort of person, and there is something about a camera's ability to freeze a moment in time that appeals to that part of me.

When my first son was born in 2003, I got a video camera, and I began to record everything, starting with the birth (though, at my wife's request, I spared my future audience the gory details and focused on her cringing face). From first bath to first feeding and so on, I got it all on digital video. I went through several 90-minute DV tapes in the first few months of his life.

A few months in, however, I began to realize something: every time I went behind the camera, I was removing myself from the scene. I rarely went back to view videos I'd taken; the recorded moments seemed to lose their value by virtue of being available for viewing at any time. The most priceless moments were the ones that came when the camera was out of reach, or when I wasn't thinking about it.

Still, I was reluctant to stop recording. In fact, I was determined to figure out how to capture more of those priceless moments without devaluing them. I kept shooting, and much to my chagrin, trying to capture a priceless moment was like trying to see one's own eye; the introduction of the camera to any scene took away that feeling of pricelessness.

Over the next year or so, I recorded less and less, eventually coming to the point where I would break out the camera only for special events like birthdays or holiday gatherings. And the priceless moments multiplied. I went from being a removed observer of the most memorable events in my little boy's life to being an active participant in them. While I could no longer call them up and view them on any TV screen, the images have remained in my head, and I will cherish them there forever, far more than the ones on video.

By the time my second son was born, three years later, the camera had become a much smaller part of my family life. I still love taking pictures and videos, but I no longer see the camera as a means of capturing a moment.

Moments are not wild animals. They cannot be captured - or, when we think we have captured them, our reason for doing so dissolves. Special moments must be allowed to run free in the fields of our minds if they are to retain their special nature. The objective eye of the camera records the light and perhaps the sound, but it does not record the memory itself, and it is no stand-in for participation.

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