Memory - God's Snapshot

One of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of travelling to wonderful places around the continent for work is that I have to do exactly that... work! Don't get me wrong, this is no "glass half empty" statement, I am not complaining. The reality however, is that while filming for television, my energy is consumed with finding the right images to tell the correct story and recording those images in a video format for telelvision. This leaves very little time for considering the stills images I would so love to capture to tell my own story. Be it a reminder to myself of my experiences, an art form to express or a legacy to show others in the future, the sad fact is that I have very little in the way of images to show for all my experiences despite the fact that I am a photographer. This got me thinking about personal experience on a recent trip to Uganda. What is personal experience, and how important is it to share these experiences with others? Why do I feel the need to "boast" my travels and experiences to others, is it not something that God has blessed me with and does He not get the Glory in my appreciation alone of these places and experiences. Why a photograph? Has he not given me the most incredible memory and ability to visualise for that purpose only, to recall wonderful, God glorifying moments?
Everything we see is a potential picture and if we were so consumed with photographing every moment, as I often am, we are likely to miss the experience. As we drove through Uganda, across the equator, towards Nchenyi Village, it occured to me that I was surrounded by these images, a lady in bright lime green high heeled shoes and a dyed red afro caught up in the dust as she swept a sandy sidewalk, a man carrying a pig on a bicycle, a family of four on a motorbike; Images that could not be captured on film in that instant but images nonetheless that were comitted to my memory, God's snapshot of the rich experiences that make up our lives. I don't have to be travelling though exotic destinations either because I have been blessed with sight and the ability to observe in whatever circumstances I find myself in. It is important that I give every one of these circumstances, every moment in my life equal priority because unless I do, the snapshot God has offered me will be gone forever, like an overexposed film, the notion that something existed there once but a white block of light erasing the image. Processing that film, that captured image is equally important. That memory should be accessed and observed, through a story told, a written prose or a pencil sketch so that as we share an experience with others, the glory of God in each of His snapshots is revealed through our life.