By Shem Onderi
Through the lens, he sees the world.
A cameraman lives another life—
seeing through an eye not his own.
He notices what the naked eye ignores:
blemishes, stretch marks,
frowns etched with fatigue,
tears heavy with frustration.
He captures smiles too—
fleeting joy on borrowed faces.
The camera rolls.
Each frame becomes history,
footage not for today,
but a memory waiting for tomorrow.
He eats and breathes camerawork.
Even when the human eye closes,
the camera keeps watch.
He witnesses events,
narrates the moment—
truthfully,
for the lens does not lie.
Sometimes he deletes what he records.
Why?
Perhaps to protect,
perhaps to forget.
Still, he peers into private lives,
an uninvited observer.
But I want to turn the camera on him.
Record the cameraman at work—
how he eats,
chews,
yawns.
His walk, his pauses,
as carefully framed as others’.
I want to ask him to stop,
to let the film roll on his face,
to frown,
to weep when emotion rises.
He should not fade away unrecorded.
The world must know he once lived.
For when the film runs out,
he will never record again.
What if the camera is human—
now that it captures voice and image—
and the cameraman
is only the shadow behind it?