Isn’t it funny how a human-made tool, carefully filled with a shiny belt of photosensitive material, conserves a moment in time? Just to make sure that at any given time in the future that one snatched second can start an entire chain reaction of thoughts and emotions.

Just now, writing this piece, I have come to believe that photography is like pickles. Till this very moment, I never realised how much parallel there is between photography and the artisan process of canning. The making of a photograph is nothing less, after all, than the (sub-conscious) fermentation of time.

The young woman in the photograph might be a beauty in real life, but in this unfortunate moment captured, she looks like a mad villain. Probably this is the very moment she had come up with her most evil plan ever to take over the universe. Her cigarette is just like the ones after love-making, the dot on the i, the cherry on top of the cake. The swing swings no more, the greatness of the idea forced it to stop. It is time to pose for the camera.

This villain is conserved in the magnificent brine of heavenly peace: in a private garden on a sunny summer day amidst greeneries and rural “silence”. Birds chirping, the bushes in blooms. (I can almost hear and smell them.) The ideal lockdown scenario, says my dear, mint tea sipping friend. And she couldn’t be more right. This image embodies everything that a proper pandemic quarantine should look like. Maybe without evil plans—but with the exact amount of tranquillity that this little rectangle emits.

There are all sort of pickles. All peoples have their own kind of (sweet-)sour manifestation of earthly goods. Some, just like good photography, are admired worldwide for a good reason. Some others are simply refreshing to look at, like a hard-working antiheroine on a summer retreat. As a good, chilled pickle on a hot summer day for the body, can be photography for the soul.

This blog post was originally written in January 2021.

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