Vemödalen

My piece has been published at The Huffington Post!

Humanity has captured such beautiful moments in this world. A pearly droplet snaking down a leaf, the sun rising behind a tree, shards of sunlight reflecting off a pond. It takes half a second to uncover thousands of unbelievable photographs, each one more inspiring and vibrant than the last. One of the most intriguing photos I’ve seen is of a lightning bolt simultaneously striking an airplane and following the path of a rainbow. Another lovely one is the image of a leaf standing on a tree branch.

Vemödalen (n). the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.

Sometimes, it may indeed seem like there are millions of wonderful photographs of the same phenomenon. I noticed this when looking at pictures of the Aurora Borealis. The auroras are dazzling lights that dance in the sky – a seemingly rare occurrence! So how can there be so many captured moments of them, each one as surreal as the next? And at one point, it becomes difficult to choose the photo I like the best – merely because there are so many magical samples to choose from.

A few of my friends are young photographers. When I asked them why they like photography, their responses were unanimous: because photos are a means of capturing and saving experiences that would otherwise be lost. But most of them were discouraged when confronted by the fact that thousands of similar photographs have already been taken. One of them told me: “It takes me days to take a photograph I’m proud of. But it takes me minutes to realize that it’s just one in a million”.

Sometimes, I wonder why people don’t have an identical attitude towards poetry. I’m very grateful that they don’t, but it still makes me wonder. After all, millions of poems have been written – each employing similar words, similar phrases, and reasonably similar ideas. And yet, I have never heard anyone say that two poems are the same (or even comparable in any aspect!). After dwelling upon it, I decided that it was because different writers have had different experiences, and will hence look at the same scenario in divergent ways, and will employ unalike tones. The poem will consequently flow in a different way. Moreover, the interpretation of a poem strongly depends on the nature of the reader; most of the time, two readers will construe the same piece in surprisingly unalike ways!

So… why can’t these explanations be applied to photography? I like to think that it’s because our eyes are superficial means of interpretation. At least mine are. To my eyes, different shades of yellow are identical, and there is little difference between salt on a black table and stars in the sky. But could there be another reason? After all, I’m not the only person who believes that there are thousands of photos that seem to capture the same essence – and there’s a reason the word ‘vemödalen’ is slowly assimilating into the English language.

It’s because we don’t invest the time into appreciating each photograph for its individuality. An hour ago, I typed the word ‘waves’ into my browser, and was presented with a cascade of different photographs, each depicting curling blue waves in an ocean. Under normal circumstances, I would have looked at the page at large, said ‘beautiful’ to myself, and then moved on. But there’s a fundamental flaw in that kind of thinking; and it starts with the words ‘at large’. On closer inspection, the photos were so radically different that it seemed a sin to cluster them all under the same heading. The first one depicted a turquoise, frothy sea, which reflected slivers of sunlight and burst into droplets upon touching the water. The second one was a photo of calm waters, mirror smooth, a beautiful blue, curling to the right. A few rows lower, there was a photo taken from the inside of a wave, which was infused with sunlight and was a living cave of its own. Each photo possessed its own essence, its own story, and its own accompanying emotions. There was fury, serenity, perfection, and magic. There was originality, and there was uniqueness.

At first glance, they may seem interchangeable. Some may say that they are – for aren’t all those photos showing a volley of water approaching a shore during the day? Yes, they are. But then again, doesn’t a set of poems portray identical emotions and strangely similar experiences? It just doesn’t seem like that, because we actually take the time to peruse its words and inhale its lifeblood. Unlike photos, we don’t take a cursory glance at it and hurry on to the next one.

Vemödalen: the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist. Or, in a parallel vein, the fear that everything has already been done. It may seem like there’s nothing we can capture that hasn’t been photographed before. But then again, each photo is unique in its own way, and has a feature that separates it from the rest. We just need to take the time to appreciate its individuality, just as we would for a poem.

Nevertheless, it’s comforting to know that we are all connected through our desire to capture our memories. Most of our photos aren’t gapingly different, but are still special – much like ourselves. We are similar, but we are not the same. When it seems like we have nothing new to add – because we think that everything has already been done – remember that we have our distinctive perspectives to contribute. And when it feels like we’re getting lost in a wave of indistinguishable abilities, remember to take down two photos capturing the same phenomenon – and appreciate the fact that at their roots, they are fundamentally different.