Another Side to Photography?

Now here's a way I hadn't thought of photography before (and I spend a lot of time thinking about photography!):  I've been reading Kate Morton's The House at Riverton (Washington Square Press, 2006, p. 301) and came across this paragraph:

It is a cruel, ironical art, photography.  The dragging of captured moments into the future; moments that should have been allowed to evaporate into the past, should exist only in memories, glimpsed through the fog of events that came after.  Photographs force us to see people before the future weighed them down, before they knew their endings.

A poetic and insightful thought, it struck me when I read it.  I found it profoundly sad to think of photos in this way.  It was a new perspective for me, to imagine looking at future photos and wondering whether those moments were meant to be preserved.  Wondering, if, in fact, that sadness would be found in the memories.  I always have more a feeling of nostalgia when I look at old photos, a feeling that time moves too quickly.  I feel, instead, that had these photos not been taken, perhaps some memories better remembered might be forgotten. 

Isn't it a wonderful thing that we do not know our futures, our endings? 

Life is beautiful, to be treasured and remembered.  Photos should bring a smile as we recall happy moments, snapshots of our lives that stop time in a way only photos and words can.

Family Pictures

It's snowing (yuck).  The groceries are done, bills are paid, and my kids have no activities or birthday parties today. 

So we are not leaving the house.

It is a great pleasure for me to stay home for a day.  The weeks are busy with work and other commitments, and often the weekends are time to catch up on everything that does not get done during the week.  But yesterday, I braved the lineups in the stores and got all my running around done so that I could enjoy my Saturday at home.

One of the things I picked up yesterday was a couple of pretty new photo albums.  One of the other things about film (see post below) that I miss is that I used to send them off immediately, pick up the prints, and place them in albums as they came in.  With digital photography, though, they spend much too long in the waiting room of my computer. 

My goal for today is to organize about 200 of them into albums, then send more off to be printed.  These are the family photos, Christmas and summer, camping and playing at the beach.  While I couldn't do without my artistic photography, these are the ones that truly matter.  They are a record of my children's lives, carrying with them joyful memories of time sweet and short.  They are family and friends, who we are and who we were.  Most of all, they are reminders of how lucky I am, how full my life is and has been.

And I am looking forward to giving them a proper home.