PRINTS AND FRAMES | Dan Biggerstaff Photography

The majority of photographs taken today remain in the dark vaults of a hard drive, never to see the light of day. A relative few are posted in various places on the internet, most soon to be forgotten. A privileged number end up on photographic paper, and even a lesser elite few are framed to be displayed on a wall or placed in a prominent place. Such a waste!

My two jobs, medicine and photography, are distinct and separate but occasionally cross paths. Recently, I was chatting with a new gyn patient in my office, when all of a sudden she appeared to become upset. I asked what was wrong, and she stated that a photograph leaning against the wall in my office ready to be hung reminded her of her childhood in Jamaica. She wanted to know where I had taken the photo, and I responded in Viet Nam. She recounted that the primitive stove looked exactly like the one on which her mother cooked when my patient was a child. We both agreed that it was amazing that two distant and distinct cultures would use the same appliance. This teapot on a wood-burning stove caught my eye in a market in a remote part of Viet Nam.