Today we celebrate World Photo Day. It dates back to 1839 when the French government  purchased the patent on 'daguerreotype process' (a photographic processes developed by Joseph Nicèphore Nièpce and Louis Daguerre) and announced the invention as a gift "Free to the World".  From my point of view, the significance of today is not about honoring photography or celebrating the photographer. As a matter of fact all the memorial days we celebrate are marked with fun and frolic, however, in reality the celebration sorts of creates a virtual wall that shields us from the pain and sadness that lies beyond. Trying not to be a critic here, I agree that there are days that demand to be remembered for at least some people who probably had been victims or directly impacted by the incidents. By the means of making a memorable day, the world gives them time to reflect, retrospect, analyses and understand the past and its influence on the future.

Anyways, since I am not an anthropologist, I should return back to my world of photo makers and admirers. Though in the world that we live in, there is a range of photo makers and photo admirers. Personally, I am always fond of those who make photos with  a story line. Mostly these stories are not with the happiest ending or any fake smiles. In a way, these photos win most of the awards like best photo of the year and the world talks about them through all sorts of media. Often I wonder how hard it will be to take such a real photo when one is standing in the middle of chaos to capture human emotions on a digital frame. I would call them the face of real world without filter. I would prefer those to be tagged as #noFilter than taking my own selfie with an online hashtag #IdontSeeTheWorldOutside.

Here, I prefer to share one of my early clicks illustrating human hope and despair in a single frame from my own country.

Again, how many of the world award winning photos which have a lot to show about the real world, the real world outside your virtual wall, the sadness behind the smile, hopelessness behind the happiness which reminds us about humanity and the privileges we are enjoying in this world  are inspiring our daily lives?

How many of us prefer to wake up from our bed watching wonderfully created wallpaper of an landscape with perfect composition of colors rather than the stark reality of the Syrian child washed away on the shore which may have won most of the photo contests or millions of likes?

I know we all have a reason for that, in fact I have the reason. It is nothing but the victory of optimism over the harsh and often sad reality of our world. It is choice of not seeing the starkness in a ‘not so happy’ photo rather being inspired by the mighty Himalayas. But I wonder how hard it will be for our beautiful nature, beaches, mountains, to start their day seeing these deplorable moments created by humans. Don't you see the irony here, "Humans spend money for having these beautiful pictures of nature to create their own virtual wall and the nature witnesses the real humans life for free #noFilter".

I fear that somewhere we are losing our humanity while conquering and creating an artificial world around us. As a photographer, I wish if we can create the world that we would like to see in our photos and STOP all that leads to painful realities that we cannot even bear to see, how inspiring it will be for the nature to start their day in a picture perfect world, I can only imagine!

-Tony