Virtual Explorers: Russian Nonfiction Writing Program Student Anthology - Class of Fall 2020

Photography Anastasiia Firsova When film was expensive and precious, we were allowed to take just one shot, which had to be perfect. Holding a camera for the first time felt so empowering! I was to decide which moment deserved to be captured forever. Years later I read “The Bridges of Madison County”, where Robert Kincaid explained that photography is about light. It’s not the moment it captures, but lights. I believe he meant sun rays, but to me photography was always about light within. As if there is a sparkle - or a fireplace - in every person. And as the shutter closes, this light appears on a small digital screen, a bit dulled by imperfections of technology (which was in a way fixed in life photos).

I carried my camera all around America. Since the day I bought it on a Black Friday sale, I did not miss a day of taking pictures. They were not limited as in my childhood, so I was experimenting, going wild and then cleaning up whatever I did not like anymore.

Over 6000 pictures stored on 3 memory cards in a small camera bag. They were so dear to me that I never showed them to anyone. And it did not come to my mind to make copies or to print pictures out. It was an extension of my memory, my own island of light through which I surfed on a wave of nostalgia.

Until the day I got relaxed and almost happy again, left the bag inside my backpack in a car only to come back in an hour and see that everything is gone. Like that day in San Fran, but with the camera being taken as well.

I felt numb. Days and people long time ago vanished from my life were almost gone from my memory. I lost myself once when I had to leave the place of my dreams, and then I lost my dreams of that place.

The journey was 4 years long and 6 thousand captured lights big, changes were inexplicable. Still, there was a very special pain which hit me when I lost the camera.

Hundreds of people go to the same places and take the same pictures. Every person is captured on photos of many someone’s cameras throughout life. There is a difference 15