Words and Visuals provided by: Michael Casatico
2014, what a year to say the very least. You know, time is a crazy thing.. As I’ve gotten older I feel like when you look towards the future, time seems slower, or as if it could take forever to get there (where ever, or what ever “there” might be). However, when you look back on time, for me, it feels like everything happened so fast. I have this weird theory that your mind condenses your memories down to only those that are worth holding on to. That's why it seems like time goes by so fast, because you don’t remember the constant hours of driving, or doing homework, or using the bathroom, or tying your shoes, or shoveling food into your mouth, or texting, or scrolling up and down social media all day. I mean.. you obviously remember, but when you look back on time, all of those average moments condense down and blend together into nothing. I always thought it was crazy how in your mind, you can reference a memory of a day in the past, and think about that whole day in a matter of two seconds? What happens to all the minutes, and seconds, where does the time go? It's wasted, recycled, and recreated into a matter of miliseconds. It’s funny though because in complete contradiction to everything I just said, I feel like all the “good”, or all the moments worth remembering, you could spend twice as long rehashing and reminiscing on them. So.. if any of that made any type of sense at all, it has lead me to this conclusion: For the rest of my life, I want to try and spend as much time as I can making moments into memories that are worth hanging onto.
So, back to looking back on 2014. I would have to say that out of my 20 years on this Earth, 2014 had the most moments worth hanging on to. Just sitting here reflecting on the whole year makes me feel some type of way, there were so many firsts, so many new highs, and so many new lows. I met countless new people, and found various new forms of inspiration. I just have to pause a second, and say thank you to each and every person that I’ve came in contact with this year. No matter if we only shook hands, or if we shared conversation, or if we broke bread, thank you for being apart of my life.
If I had to speak on the most influential part of 2014, I would have to say photography played the biggest roll across the board. Referencing the previous paragraphs, I would say photography was tied into everything in one way or another. Taking photos not only introduced me to new people, places and things, but it also helped me hold on to my memories in a new way. Photography helped give me purpose in trying to create more moments worth hanging on to. It has given me digital and physical copies of instants in time that I felt were worth capturing, and freezing forever. Photography has helped me slow down time in the present, and the past. Looking forward, I would like to think that photography will be one of my most useful tools in the effort to turn moments into memories. A tool to help reference the highs, the lows, and everything in between that gets lost in time and memory.
To sum everything up with some photographs, I wanted to share one of my favorite memories of 2014 with y’all. For Christmas this year, my girlfriend helped me reach some new heights, and personal firsts. A trip to the beach turned out to be a helicopter ride up and down the coast, and all around San Diego. This was my first time ever in a helicopter, and my first time ever being able to see the city from such a unique perspective. Big thank you to my pilot Peter over at Corporate Helicopters for making everything so smooth. Here is a small burst of photos from the hundreds I took while up in the air. I don’t know why, but I still haven’t been able to look through the whole camera roll. It might actually take me all of 2015 to thoroughly go through and edit every photo. But hey, I’m not complaining, it’s moments like this that I want to fill my memory bank with. Cheers to 2015, and to making more moments worth remembering.