Began with a Blackberry shot
Since tenth grade.
8:15 AM
The school’s newspaper wouldn’t be distributed before 10:00 AM. Hadi would have to patiently wait till then. There is no way time would pass by faster. He had previously thought of many ways to do so. The most obvious one is to pretend that what the teacher was saying was interesting. More often than not, the subject would be more painful than interesting; that’s how that first method is only efficient during the first ten minutes of the class. He could stare at the clock while trying not to be too obvious about the fact that he’s following the fastest hand around the quadrant. Was a minute supposed to last for more than sixty seconds? A more creative way is counting seconds on a calculator or using bars on a notebook, like in prison. Gazing out the window was too romantic, taking an unnecessarily long bathroom break too suspicious and visiting the infirmary too dramatic. The only thought that kept Hadi going was that it had to be 10:00 some time soon. That’s how time works.
8:44 AM
He started off in tenth grade with a BlackBerry. It had a decent camera which led Hadi to experiment with his affinity for aesthetics. He soon upgraded to an iPhone and he kept on taking pictures of everything. That one frame that wouldn’t stand still over the TV. The wrinkles in the laundry when it sat too long in the basket. The shadow of a brown pigeon silently resting by the window. The leftovers of a candy bar he forgot in his backpack. Forgotten stairs drowning in mousse.
9:25 AM
He considered his hobby to be very niche. His classmates played basketball and so playing basketball was the mainstream thing. Photography? Sure, he did not have a professional camera nor had taken classes in photography, but it turns out that having a good eye pays off. His friends would take a look at his pictures and sometimes wonder how they missed out on a detail hidden in plain sight. He didn’t go on quests for photograph-worthy subjects and locations. He found them. All around him. And that saved him a lot of time, especially that he was drowning in homework most days of the week.
9:56 AM
Good thing that she told him about the photos on the day he would see them. He did not plan this yet he was grateful he was getting published. More than grateful. He was excited. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the paper and see what his photographs — the ones he had memorized by heart — would look and feel like printed, on paper. He had four minutes (a bit less than that) till the class ended. Add to that a couple of more minutes until he finds his way to the paper and flip its pages until he finds what he’s looking for.
10:02 AM
“Here, I got you a copy.”
It was just the close-up of a leaf but somehow it has impressed many people.
He showed the issue to his friends.
To his family.
He then neatly folded it and kept it in his room.
2017
Hadi is about to invest in his second semi-professional camera. He takes pictures of people and makes friends along the way. He still has the newspaper issue of the leaf closeup in his bedroom.
