Photo Profile : Noah Darnell

I make images because I do not want to forget. In my mind, a photograph is as simple as that: a way to remember. Years ago, as I began to photograph my life and become more prolific, I began to realize that tens of thousands of images per year was able to document my world in a way that no writing in journals, no video, no anything could rival.

I was living overseas and could not attend the funeral of my grandfather when he died of Alzheimer’s. (The ultimate “forget,” I guess you could say.) On film and with a quiet rangefinder camera, I had made a handful of images of him at Christmastime before I left. Even though the photos are technically nothing special, they were the last images of a man while he was living. It was as if I was seeing him for the last time all over again.

At the time, I had been working for my university for a few years prior to that moment. I was making images for clients, but it was a “job.” After those images of my grandfather appeared on the emulsion in my bathroom darkroom, the “job” became an internal mission. My photography, no matter what or where or for whom, was now for me. It wasn’t long before I realized that I could meld all of this making of photos with serving people. So my life as a photojournalist was set. I was hooked.

The camera has paved my way to go on these excursions to the far corners of the world. Instead of tens of thousands of images per year, I’m in the hundreds of thousands of images per year. Someone sends me to a place like Darjeeling, India, and I am documenting every nook and cranny because I don’t want to forget the faces of this amazing place perched in the eaves of the roof of the Earth.

I believe the images I make reflect “just being there” as much as the photograph actually shows a far-off person, place or thing. Because when I’m old and gray and forgetting things, I can look back at the little smirk and the brightening of the eyes of the young monk as he realized he was being photographed.

And I can see that I once sat in that rattly old car and feel the warm February Cuban breeze as the brief smell of the horse and a little sun-baked produce shot past the window. And then it has become not a remembrance of just going to an exotic place and photographing exotic people for some magazine or company, but a remembrance of the human interactions that took place somewhere in this really big world – the moment when our paths crossed, even for an instant.

Even if they forget me or if I never know what good came of an image I made, I do my best – through my photography – to never forget them. Hopefully, though, in the semi- selfishness of not wanting to forget, the images I make somehow serve those in my frame lines.

Links

Portfolio: http://www.noahdarnellphoto.com
Blog: http://www.haonavy.com
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/haonavy/