All it takes is the press of a button. A quick flash of light. The subtle sound of a click.

In the time it takes to blink, a camera can stop the clock. It can capture any moment and suspend it in time forever. Whether it be bad or good, happy or sad, formal or casual, this creates a moment that will be there forever, for everyone to see and remember.

This great work of art is known to us as the photograph.

OK, I admit it. 95 percent of the time, I don’t particularly like photographs. They’re either an embarrassing reminder of my middle school days, or another particularly awkward stage of my life that is forever sealed in a still frame. There is no shortage of embarrassing laughs, poses, or toothy smiles that have been preserved for everyone to see for the next century.
Even if photographs highlight my worst features and display them in an extremely unflattering manner,  I don’t know what I would do without them.
Until now, there are only a few events that I can remember in the short 16 years of my life.  I rely on the countless shoeboxes filled with photographs and the stacks of family albums to tell me what I looked like as a baby, to serve as my personal witness to my childhood.
Cheesy as it sounds, I don’t know what I’d do without photographs.
I wouldn’t know my past. I wouldn’t have a past. There would only be the grainy memories that are filed away in the recesses of my mind that would tell me who I used to be.  There would be no facts, just stories and my own unreliable memories, that would build a shaky rendering of what the world used to be like.
Photos give all of us a past, whether it’s something we like to remember, or something we wish to forget. Whatever the case may be, photographs are the only way we can actually reminisce. They’re our only connection with the world before us and with the people we loved who passed before us. Most importantly, they’re the only way we can learn from our past.
None of us should take photographs for granted, yet we all do.
By Afsah Khan