Several weeks ago my husband and I drove to San Francisco to watch my cousin and 3.500 of his peers graduate from UC Berkeley. The ceremony was held in the enormous Cal Memorial football stadium, which left very few people with the opportunity to capture anything other than large-scale photos. Armed with a 300mm lens, I was fortunate enough to get a unique perspective on the big day.
From the depths of my lens I watched as few kids remained attentive... and don't get me wrong, I was there once too! With plenty of distance from their families and the safety of numbers, there was little inhibition in the crowd. I saw a handful of students who seemed genuinely interested, but a majority simply laughed with friends and continued partying from their seats. I watched as kids fixed and re-fixed their hair, and even spied a few who picked their nose and, in one instance, flicked their new-found discovery at his friend. A carefree air permeated this gaggle of graduates, and most tried to capture the memory with their phone. There were so many photos being taken - everything from silly gangs of kids crowding into one shot, all the way to sexy, "I'm an adult now" selfies. As the long ceremony drew to a close and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, it came time for the freshly-minted grads to let their caps fly... and yet many did not. Instead of a celebratory farewell to one part of their life, and bidding hello to the future, many just watched from behind iPhone screens, trying to catch a photo. The fear of losing that precious moment is real, but it was a powerful lesson that we should not be so afraid of missing the moment that we choose to be passersby instead of participants.
I want this to be a lesson for myself: when it's time, let the hat fly. There are so few times in your life that are full of sheer joy and abandon, you simply can't be too worried about capturing the moment on film. You have to trust that even if a camera fails to capture it for you, your memory will not.
