Two kids in a photograph.

I was hanging up a photo today, of two kids I had photographed whilst in Africa.  I paused for a moment to reflect on how unbelievably beautiful life is, and then realized something.  The two kids in the photograph mean nothing to me, apart from the gut-wrenchingly-nostalgic emotional reaction seeing them elicits.  I never had a relationship with them apart from the quick utterance of "sura? shukran," and I will never know what kind of men they will grow up to be, or even if they survive into manhood. To me, they really aren't people. They are subjects.  They are representations of an innate urge to capture as much of the world as I can and stuff it into little 4x6 boxes.  They are physical manifestations of my selfishness and all of humanity's inability to truly empathize within itself.  They are reminders of my sinful desire to puff up my own ego through admiration of my art. Most of all, though, they are proof of how vast this world is, how complex the human race, and how small my cognitive abilities.
I love this photograph. It is beautiful and I am proud of it. I am frightened and confused as to how some ink on a piece of paper provokes such a reaction within me, but I am amazed that God created us as such prodigiously complex beings who will never understand this earth from this earth.