We Forget Everything: A Film About the Preciousness of Photography

Here’s a great short film written and directed by Mumbai-based photographer Martin Prihoda that pays a touching tribute to photography. As he explains it, this short amounts to a “love letter to Bombay and to the good old ‘film’ days.”

Up until five years ago, Prihoda was based out of Vancouver, but at some point he decided to break through the barriers of his comfort zone, leave what he knew behind, and relocate to Mumbai (or, as he often calls it, Bombay).

In a recent interview with David Hobby of Strobist, he explains how the move has affected him, and his motivation behind picking up and leaving it all behind:

I’m much more comfortable dealing with larger crews and delegating. I’m also much more at ease walking into an agency and showing my work or presenting my thoughts at a pre-production meeting or even just sitting and discussing ideas with the editor or art director of a magazine.

…

I feel as though Mumbai threw me into the big leagues with real players and real budgets. I suppose the most important thing for me is that I answered my ‘what if’ questions: what if I moved out of my comfort zone and went somewhere crazy and tested my skills, would I succeed?

The film pays tribute to those things that have shaped his life most dramatically: Mumbai and photography. There’s a joy and a preciousness that he captures in the short that it’s easy to lose sight of in hustle and bustle of the so-called ‘rat race.’ On some level, videos like this are here to remind us.