Capturing Time

If you’re old enough you should remember the day when taking a photograph involved quite the procedure. My mom had what I think was a Kodak Brownie camera (? maybe) that she was ecstatic about. The process was slow. Film to buy at a store and then load into the camera. Then you had to remember to advance the film after taking the picture or risk double exposures. And the blinding flash that was so easy to forget to use, and of course when you really needed it you’d learn the bulb was burned out. Yes, little bitty light bulbs. Yes, we had to replace them. Yes, in a CAMERA, children of today!!! Then you had to use up all the film before having the pictures processed. Which always resulted in random shots of nothingness. Often we had more random nothings than good pictures. 

Back in those days in order to even look at the picture you just took it required printing them, which was a 10 day-2 week process.  You waited all that time, sifted through  12 to 24 to 36 to 48 prints for possibly that ONE picture you really wanted to see.  And often, every stinking one of them was icky and unusable.  Useful only for gag gifts or the like.

Photography was just not that easy back in the day. A good picture was a priceless treasure. Fast forward to today. Wow what a difference. Digital imaging has simplified the life of photo lovers.  I’m happy saying goodbye to the days of film rolls & cartridges. So much easier to look at the picture you’ve taken in a little screen and simply slap the delete button to erase it. Or push another button and crop out your wide hips and thighs. Ah, the bliss of the edit feature. So much easier to store the pictures on your computer, or have them quickly printed.   So much easier that perhaps we forget just how precious pictures really are.

Recently I was in a conversation with a friend who was criticizing an elderly family member for going overboard taking pictures. “He will take 100 shots of the same thing, then move on to another object and take 100 more shots.” To me, that’s just no big deal. Especially when the objects in the pictures are people, family....let’s get to the point: GRANDCHILDREN!! Or puppies. Or whatever your heart desires. Whatever your heart desires. Think about it. Why do we take pictures? I think it’s an attempt to stop time. To capture a moment. When that moment has long passed by and you can no longer hug that person, or talk to that person, or be in the same place with that person.....you can look at a photo and still have the same emotion you had when the picture was taken. It’s as close as we can humanly get to capturing time. What a blessing to have pictures.

Benton & Bunny.  1958.  "We'll go fishing when you're older, Bunny girl."

The picture above is one of only a handful of pictures of me with my dad. I so wish there were more. Only had him for 17 years of my life. One other picture that I possess is one of him and his old fishing friend with a stringer of fish. I’m in the picture, too, because he woke me up to show me what I’d missed out on when I opted to stay in bed instead of getting up at 6 am to go run our fishing lines with them on the river.  I would show you that picture but I was wearing my bath robe and my hair was bed head crazy. Seeing the stringer of fish was way too exciting to take the time to get dressed before heading out the front door. It’s all captured on film. Not a flattering picture, but the memory it brings to my mind is simply priceless. Memories. Priceless.

Take a picture. Or 100 pictures. Capture some time. Hold on to the memories.

Pretty sure this picture qualifies as priceless.   

Time captured.  

Moment to treasure.

Forever in a picture.