People photograph London and you see it through their stills, their black and white, their filter. It’s a snapshot of a moment, edited, photoshopped, framed, idolised, analysed, romanticised. But I’m in London and I sit at Tottenham Court Road Station and I watch the red and blue tubes go pass, one by one. I don’t even take my camera out, because that moment is live and I will never experience it again. If that moment passes you by it will never be returned. Photography is like taxidermy. The moment you press the shutter button is the moment you kill it. You can preserve the subject, but you will never see it alive again. You can find others to replace it, but that specific thing, person or moment will never come back to life. You will never see it again.
written on 10 July 2014
Wan Phing Lim 