005: Leave the moon alone!!!!

Why can’t you take a good picture of the moon & what does it have to do with making art?
~~~

We all know it’s hard to take a good picture of the moon, and I for one respect the moon’s unwillingness to be photographed on a phone. But why is that the case, and what can it tell us about creativity? 

Thanks for reading Kimaya Diggs Deeper! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

If you have one of those fancy phones, I have some news for you:

Surprise! My day job literally used to be writing about smartphones all. day. long. I know almost everything there is to know about smartphones and “astrophotography mode.” Some of y’all can take amazing-looking photos of the moon with your phone, but it’s not an actual, factual picture of only the moon – your lens & aperture are probably great, but your phone is taking 16+ images in an instant, stacking them, and using machine learning algorithms and global positioning to enhance and fill in details using AI. 

The moon is the original demure girlie.

She doesn’t want her picture taken! She could be tiny and silver or plump and clementine-orange on the horizon and she’s still like no pictures, please! She casts a truly enchanting glow, is like, the inventor of romantic lighting, and changes with the tides – an icon! The moon is truly giving so much – form, function, flirtation – and yet she won’t let us capture her beauty on a simple iPhone. 

We have a collective urge to document things.

We’ve all been at shows/events/etc where you’re watching through a million tiny screens while everyone films. It’s annoying, but I think it comes from a place of love: the intention behind capturing a moment is (usually) that you care about it, want to share it, and connect with others over it. People who film or photograph everything find memory-worthy moments all the time, and there’s something beautiful about that. 

Remembering a special moment is great, but when does the process of capturing that moment cross the line into removing you from being present? If you’re making videos of a band, you’re no longer attending a show, you’re documenting it, and those are two different things. The very process of documenting it can rob you of the experience you think you’re participating in, even as you become less present through said process. 

Does that make sense??? I am very much not a philosopher and when ideas become too recursive I often resort to vibes, like: do you get the general aura of what I’m saying? Ok, good.

The moon teaches us that not all good things need to be captured.

Well, really the moon teaches us that not all good things can be captured. When you’re at a show, or an art gallery, or watching a new film for the first time, it’s not just a visual experience. When you take a picture on your phone, you’re capturing sight and sound – but not all of it. There’s texture, the nuance of lighting, the swish and texture of the costumes, and the outfits of the people in the crowd that are missing. The smells: beer or linseed oil or popcorn ground into dust and growing stale under your seat. The taste of the gum you always keep in your pocket, or the taste of drink in your hand. The heat of being around other people, or the cold AC in the gallery. The way the stage lights turn everyone’s faces blue, or the film casts moving colors across everything. The way the moon’s surface is speckled and streaked with craters and hills, and the way the dark side of it glows like a memory, or like an egg yolk. 

There’s something to be said for the elusiveness of great moments. Their unwillingness to be captured in all their brightness, all their grit, heat, and sensation. And there’s something to learn from the fact that the only way we can really experience something is to be present with it in the very moment in which it’s taking place. It’s why I love live music, attending an art show, or seeing/watching/reading something new: it’s a once-in-a-universe experience that won’t ever be the same again. But in today’s phone-centric world, it’s easy to slide across the line of “capture a memory” into the realm of “you just watched an entire show through your phone screen, ya goof.” 

A moment is just a moment.

Deep, right? We need to capture our art in order to share it with a wider audience, but it’s important to remember that we’re only capturing one version of the infinite variations we can emit. My own musical releases depict just one of many performances. My published writing is just the draft I was at when I decided to stop. Even a film is just a selection of moments – you never get to see the many takes that led to the final cut, or the storyboards that brought the perspective to life. The recorded audio and visuals we see are recordings of one moment, not an artist’s forever sound, an actor’s peak performance, the most perfect painting in the world. And we shouldn’t expect perfection from the art we interact with in our daily lives. 

I am but a simple moth.

When’s the last time you just stood and stared at the moon? I did it the other night in anticipation of writing this, and I held my phone in my hand like an anchor. When I put it down, I felt it pulling at my fingers like come on, take a picture of the mooooon. Instead of succumbing, I turned my face upwards, letting moonlight wash over my face. I started to sway a little bit, not because of the mystical vibes but because I have a hard time keeping my balance if my face is pointed directly upwards. I felt like a little moth at moth church praying to the moth deity. I felt so many distractions picking at my brain. I tried to look at the moon for a whole minute. I counted the seconds. I felt like wow, I’m so connected with nature and I felt like I should capture this moment so I never forget it.

But I didn’t, because I know she’ll come back. I’ll be a month older and a month further along in orbit, and if that isn’t life, I don’t know what is.