12th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Altered Images
The happiness was an emptiness III

All of our best and worst memories live in a fickle, beautiful haze. They are the most clear of obscurities; they exist in foggy images, and half-remembered feelings. The constructions of ourselves that we make from our memories are that only of chosen and interpreted truths. Even if memories are all inevitably distorted and idealized, I remember what I felt. Truth is a choice that is inadvertently self-governing and perpetually self-affecting. Belief is both autonomous, and conditioned by choice. It is choice that changed Jean-Paul Sartre’s privileged situation into a perfect moment. My memory of this day is that of a perfect moment. I remember the silence, it’s importance, and my fear of breaking it. My mind was empty. It was a feeling of nothing. It was emptiness. I remember the happiness, and I remember the champagne.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 12.2013
Date Uploaded: 11.2014
Photo Location: Sanger, California, United States of America
Camera: Perfection V500
Copyright: © Forrest Wasko