Nicola and I have a Great Big Box of photos. It’s all mixed up together — her history, mine, and ours all in a jumble of photos, in packets or loose (professional photographers everywhere are shuddering at this moment, I know…). I love every once in a while to drag this box out of the closet and look. I love seeing myself and my beloved people in different times and places in our lives.
It’s odd that N and I don’t actually have that many pictures of ourselves together, and we don’t routinely take a camera when we travel… for whatever reason, we just don’t think to do it. Perhaps it’s that although I love seeing photos of beautiful places, to me they are primarily art or story — I don’t often take pictures of places I visit in order to remember them. It’s photos of people that do it for me, and generally people-in-action (as opposed to the group-hug-everybody-smile variety).
Here are two photos that I really love. The first is my mother at about age 38. I always liked the photo, and I was jazzed when I moved to Chicago in my early 20’s and she gave me the shirt and the hat.
When I was 27, I asked a photographer friend to help me create the second photo. I wanted to give my mum a present, and I thought it might please her to see us being “related” — a metaphor of mothers and daughters made concrete.
My mum has these photos hanging side by side in her home. The other day, she scanned them and sent them to me. I am thrilled to have them in my virtual Great Big Box.
Wow. What a great idea. Related for sure. Do you still have the shirt/hat?
I have many packets of photos stuffed in various boxes myself… so no shuddering over here.
You are your mother’s daughter alright. And you are both beautiful. Love the hat. I wouldn’t mind seeing some more pictures, if you want to put them on. Welcome back.
I’ll see what I can come up with.
That is awesome!
My parents’ photos are also in one large box. Some are in albums – mostly the ones of my oldest brother as a baby. There are six of us, so it’s not surprising they ran out of time or energy after the first one. 🙂
As a kid, every once in awhile I would pull out that box and go through it. I loved looking at the pictures of my family this way. A few years ago, my mom told me I could take a few of my favorites which I did.
You and your mom are indeed both beautiful!
I have to say that I am the anti-photo person. I don’t know when it started but I think it was related to my belief in the American Indian idea of the camera stealing your soul. Either that or it was my intense need to be private and separate. So pictures of myself are few and far between. Comparison photos are non existent except for those pictures I retain in my mind. We introverted extroverts are like that I guess.
But shirts, that’s another question. A good shirt, kept clean, and worn carefully can stay with me a long time. My oldest shirt is 28 years this May. I bought it in a great shirt shop in Laguna Beach for my birthday. When I travel that is one of my goals along the way. To find a shirt to bring home for the memory and to surprise myself at how different places have different styles.
Of course, there are also several shirts I keep because they remind me that I used to be a little slimmer and maybe someday I can get back to their size. One thing I remember about shirts from my school days was the idea that couples could wear the same shirts to show their connection. Cute but hokey.
The danger for me in comparing myself to my parents is that I might find out that I was/am more like them than I’d want to be. Obviously that is not a concern for you since the respect and love you hold for yours is a consistent thread.
Yeah, and welcome back.
This reminded me of my grandmother because she used to have a few photo albums and many photos piled in various boxes. I used to love to pull those out and go through them with her. It got to be a routine almost – I’d often ask the same questions just to draw her out. I didn’t really feel any serious connection with the people in the old and faded b/w photos, but I loved to get the story behind them. My grandmother wasn’t a big talker, and that was the best way to get her to remember and talk about her life.
I’m thinking that as time goes on people will have fewer and fewer boxes of old photos. So many photos are digital now, and really never even get printed. And there is a whole period of time when color photos first came out until recently during which most prints were printed in color that is fading. They are already fading and will not last for generations the way the old b/w photos did.
And yes, I neglected to mention the other thing I was thinking when I first saw this. You are both beautiful.
Wow! When I first looked at the two pictures I thought that both photos were of you, and it wasn’t until I read the entry that I realized the one on the left was your mother. You look just like her. Cool!
Thanks everyone for all the nice comments — I am pressed for time so won’t respond individually, but I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to share your thoughts with me.
I have the impulse to post pictures and tell stories right now. I can see a few hours of Rootling Around in the Photo Box in my future — and a lot of photo scanning in Nicola’s (bwaa haa haa!)