All I got is a photograph to remind me of the places we used to go.
Ringo Starr
They say one is worth 1,000 words. I’ve only got about 600 in this space but I’ll try to paint a picture nonetheless.
Everyone has a pile of photos laying around the house. Old snapshots of days gone by. My mother always used to insist that we get a photo taken every time someone came to visit or when someone was going off on a big trip. We have legions of photos of a group of people out in front of the house. The shot was never taken indoors. We knew enough not to shoot into the sun, so everyone in the photos are usually squinting or holding their hand up over their eyes.
The photos have us all with varying hairstyles, hair lengths, trendy clothes, belly paunches, different vehicles, and, depending on how keen we were about getting our picture taken, varying scowls. But we were always there.
As kids we never saw the value of always getting a photo of everyone. After all, Uncle Tony never changed. He looked the same year after year and so did we. At least that’s what we thought. How wrong we were. My mother knew.
The photos now are a reminder of days gone by. Looking at the photos I can remember what the days felt like, what I felt like.
When I sort through those photos now, like everyone else, it’s a trip down memory lane. My mother was smart in preserving those moments.
But one day while I was sorting through some old family documents I came across a photo that really struck me. It wasn’t of anyone in my family. It was of a young, promising ski racer. He was posing at the bottom of the hill on a springtime afternoon. The photo was black-and-white and printed on TP6 paper, which is high-contrast photo paper that we used to use in the newspaper industry.
I knew who the skier was. But that isn’t what struck me about the photo. What struck me about the photo was that I knew who the photographer was. It was my father.
For some reason he had taken aside the photo that ran in the local paper along with the story about the skier and it ended up in a box of family stuff.
As I looked at the photo it occurred to me that I was looking at what my father had looked at 30 years prior. In a strange way, I was seeing the world through his eyes. Knowing the area, I could feel the warmth of the spring sun, I could smell the freshness of the mountain air, and I could hear the snow dripping off nearby roofs. I knew, exactly at that moment in time, what my father had seen and felt on that day more than 30 years ago. For a moment I stepped into his mind and could remember all that he was.
I’ve always loved photos and I guess I can thank my parents for that. So when you dust off the old family photos, remember that they can connect you with those who are in the photo, but they can also connect you with the photographer. And that brings back even more memories.