Hi there

It’s been a while since I’ve written on here; years in fact.

But something happened recently that I wanted to write about. Something that has had me musing about the power of a single moment, the legacy of photography, and how in this over-documented life, we should still choose to document it.

I used to cart my Canon SLR everywhere. I loved snapping photos of my family and friends as they laughed and danced and existed as the amazing people they are. I loved every crooked smile and laugh line and the way the light clung to them and made them glow. I don’t do that anymore and I don’t really know why. Maybe as the camera in my iPhone got good, the SLR became awkward and heavy to carry around. If I’m being honest, it was also probably confidence. I upgraded from my trusty Canon to a Fuji X-T20, and while the camera takes beautiful photos, it overwhelms me. I knew where I was with my Canon, but this, this is so smart, has so many features, so many levers and buttons and settings. It intimidates me.

Anyway. I used to take pictures a lot.

One such time was back in 2014 when I was home for my cousin’s wedding. A week or so before the big day, my uncle Jack invited some of the whānau* out on his yacht, the High Seas, for a spin around the Auckland harbour. Jack lived a life of sweet irony - by day he worked as an estate agent, finding people their dream house. By night, he lived on the High Seas – always with a glass of red wine to hand, serenading the other boaties with his guitar in the open air.

It was a beautiful day, albeit a bit wild and blustery at times. The boat rocked and tipped and swayed with the waves as we clung to the sides for dear life. The wind whipped around us. The blinding sunlight bounced off my aunt’s polarised sunglasses. Benj caught the tiniest of fish. Jack gently but confidently encouraged us all to have turn at the wheel. And I took some pictures.

At the time I knew it was a special day as, living on the opposite side of the world from home, I so rarely get days like that with my family. I put some of the photos on Facebook and forgot about them.

But then, ten days ago, Jack died.

It was sudden. And a shock. And the distance between here and home felt a million miles further than it ever had before. This event ripped into our family and yet I couldn’t hug and I couldn’t help.

Digging around for something I could do, I remembered the photos from that day and pinged some of them through to our cousins’ WhatsApp group. Soon I saw that his sons were sharing the photos on Facebook as they started the slow and sad effort to let people know the news. In particular, one photo I took of Jack at the helm, ever confident through the uncertain waves. That was the picture that they chose to use as the main image of Jack at the funeral.

My sister in Edinburgh, and me in London, woke at 2am to watch the funeral live stream. I watched my cousins speak beautifully, my mum and aunts speak lovingly, as story after story about his bravery, his stubbornness, his love of life were revealed. My aunt Jenny said it best when she said that “Jack felt things more intensely than others.” He felt a perfect musical note, he felt a rich conversation, he felt the wind nudging him onwards toward adventure.

A complex, incredible man. And his family felt that the photo I took by chance that day, encapsulated him.

I tear myself down for not being a proficient photographer – most of the time I’m just guessing; wrangling with a camera that is rolling its eyes at my lack of technical knowledge. So I choose to not take my camera with me because it’s too hard, too stressful, too whatever-excuse-I-have-that-day. But Jack’s death has made me question this malaise and realise that the act of documenting the moment can be as important as experiencing it. You’re creating a time capsule. Capturing a sliver of someone’s existence. The quality of the photo is immaterial if the moment has substance.

Haere rā Jack. I hope there’s a strong wind and a glass of red wherever you are now.