Elsewhere: Photography as a Hobby and an Escape
Elsewhere is a series of short essays that deep dive into various medical students and their hobbies that are unrelated to medicine. We discuss hobbies for fun, ways to escape the challenges of medicine, and much more. Thank you for joining.
Baffour Kyerematen: Photography
When I take a photograph, my goal is to give the viewer a peek into my head at that particular moment. My photos are much less about what I am depicting, and much more about how I have chosen to depict a particular scene. I was once told by an acquaintance that my photos are “boring”, which upon reflection, I realized wasn’t actually an insult. What he meant was that I wasn’t a photographer that sought out particularly unique sights or once-in-a-lifetime moments. I’m not capturing an engagement announcement in a scenic backyard during golden hour, nor am I documenting the outburst of a protest in the streets of New York City. If I’m not an event photographer, nor photojournalist, then how do I classify what I do? None of the above really. In fact, “boring” is pretty apt, albeit maybe not the best choice of words.
Now do I literally think my photos are boring? Of course not, I think they are beautiful. But the purpose of my photography is not to capture something exciting, in fact, I prefer to capture scenes that are calm, quiet, soft, and rather normal. Often, what is depicted isn’t a new sight, it’s just presented in a way that’s slightly more beautiful than maybe you’d remember it to be.
Pursuing photography while in medical school has taken up a different residence in my brain than it has before. I’ve obviously found myself with a lack of free time, to no surprise. But my change of location has proven itself to be a challenge as well. I don’t believe I need to convince anyone why living in San Francisco offered a slightly different canvas than Oklahoma City; the way people move in this city is different, the air smells different, even the color of the sky is different. All of this change and learning to adapt to how I want to photograph my surroundings has proven to be quite the analogy for how I’ve felt since starting medicine. In school, I’ve had to constantly change how I study, how I take care of myself, and how I view the world around me (the cliché alarm rings loud and true). I often use photography as an escape, as it is an opportunity for me to be alone, quiet, and patient.
With such a heavy course load, I carve out this specific time to be creative as my own self-care — a preservation ritual if you will. Medicine always has me thinking fast, the tests make me anxious, and my back hurts from sitting down 24/7 trying to integrate physiology and pathology into something that makes sense. With photography, I get to be slow again. The only thing making me anxious is whether or not I have enough sunlight left in an evening. I get to be on my feet, and I’ll walk aimlessly for hours, not even realizing the time passing.
I no longer feel guilty about taking time away from studying to do something I love. If I die tomorrow, my grade in Neurology is not what people will remember me by. By photographing my surroundings, these images may hopefully tell a story of what I valued, not just how hard I worked. My photographs serve the purpose of communicating to the world what I find beautiful, without having to say it verbally or write it down. And my goal is to be able to share that beauty with others. I can always say how I feel or show care and empathy through my future profession. But through photography, I can give other people glimpse into the beauty that I see through my own eyes everyday.
To view more photography, feel free to visit http://baffourkyerematen.com
Baffour Kyerematen is a medical student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and a co-founder of the Atlas blog. His interests include film photography, health policy, Beyoncé’s extensive discography, and endocrinology (not necessarily in that order).
