The snapshot

My grandpa and uncle caught un-posed. It looks like there was some serious discussion about the computer going on.

1…2…3… everybody say “CHEESE”! I am not sure when I stopped saying this before taking snapshots. I guess I haven’t completely lost it but I don’t say it as much as I think I used to say it. Usually, I am snapping pics as quietly as I can with my phone. No flash, no shutter sound.

What did you say before taking a picture of someone? Do you say anything now?

Thinking back to before digital cameras, it seems like taking stealthy pictures was the rare thing to do. Either taking it by accident or just being silly and snapping away with no regard for composition. Or maybe you were before your time? Attempting to capture life as it was rather than the stiff, posed versions.

Film

I have no idea who most of these people are. I think that the guy in the white shirt and black felt hat is my dad based on posture and to his right is my mom based on face shape. Just call me detective, Detective Jessica.

If you grew up with only digital cameras let me point out a few things real quick. Before digital, the main form of photography was a film camera. The film came in its little canister, and you had to correctly load it into the camera so that the image could be recorded. I remember the film itself being fairly pricy. Cost #2. (Having the camera was Cost #1) Then that film only had so many spaces on it to record images.

After a quick Google, 24 images was the number I most frequently encountered on a roll of film.

So, you have 24 chances to take a picture. You better ration them wisely. And make sure your aim is true.

I remember falling into the category of being too stingy with my opportunities. I only got that one roll of film. Don’t want to waste it on a blunder.

But wait… Cost #3. Once you have filled up your film you need to take it to be developed. I remember that being somewhere in the ballpark of $10+. And you were really fancy if you got double prints.

On a side note, I will forever love the feel of that gummy blue sticky stuff they used to seal the envelopes that the film went in. Yes, strange, I know.

I go through all this to maybe demonstrate why the care in taking each image was needed. And this was readily available, consumable cameras and film. You didn’t need to have the development solutions or a dark room or fragile glass plates. Photography had come a long way at this point. Once you snapped the button, you did not know what you were going to get until it was developed and by then the moment has long passed.

Real Gold

Puppies are timeless, but you can definitely tell that the bedding is from another time.

Some of those ‘messed up’ pictures are the real gold. It’s like a time capsule. A window directly into the past. I love seeing the everyday stuff. The labels on the food we had. That blanket that my family had forever and has long since disappeared. What kind of shoes I wore as a baby. I can’t believe how cool my grandparents looked in their late teens! Oh and the cigarettes! People were smoking all the time and everywhere! At least that’s how it seemed. I wasn’t there.

After the shock of seeing through the window to a time long past, I always look at the people. Their eyes. Their posture. What were they doing? Some snapshots seem to capture a hint of sadness in one’s eyes. But I think more often they capture love or happiness. It’s an unguarded moment where you see what was really going on. Or at least you see something that you may have never seen before.

So young. So cool!

My grandparents. I really dig the cool factor.

One keeps coming to mind of my grandparents. They were so young! And cool! Their clothes were simple yet sophisticated. And the spark of liveliness that one snapshot caught in their faces is amazing. It makes me want to know more. Where were they? Was this before they got married or after?

Baby Five Head Selfie

The little boy way in the back in the red striped shirt is my little brother, with his baby five head.

Another snapshot is of my little brother. Just looking at the picture I can only imagine that he found the camera in my mom’s bag and started playing with it. Kids love to push buttons. And that resulted in a now family famous picture that is out of focus and way too close to the subject. My little brother’s baby five-head.

Both pictures could not have been re-created. Their story is in the spontaneity and lack of ‘perfection’. I always feel my attention being drawn into these kinds of photos. Almost like a daydream. I look at all the details. I am apart but included, separated only by the years.

Fast Forward to the Era of Digital

One of my kids took this. It’s certainly not very flattering, but will it be a window to the past 20+ years from now?

Today I have thousands of pictures on my phone. I have pictures on memory cards I haven’t looked at since the day I took them. But I know I have deleted thousands more. I am my family’s stealth picture-taker. Or the mom that’s yelling “wait! Don’t move! Let me grab my phone!” so I can capture what my children look like after playing in a mud puddle. And I never stop at one picture, I hit that button multiple times. Then get to sort through the snapshots to see which one turned out the best. Sometimes I delete the extras and sometimes not.

It’s that deleting that has me thinking. Am I erasing the snapshots I so admire as windows into the past? I see a picture of myself and think “ewww, delete that. I’m all splotchy and wrinkly and frizzy.” Could that have been the picture that captured my true happiness at the moment and I don’t even see it? If I didn’t delete that picture would it resurface in 20, 30, or 40 years and my perception of it be completely different? Would my great-grandchildren think I was eccentric or classic?

Beautiful Time Traveler

This one feels like I stepped back in time and just looked around.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of beautiful posed perfect pictures some of which are hanging on my wall at home. But I cannot help but wonder where will the snapshots go. I do hope that enough of them survive to pass on the sense of wonder. Right now, we cannot physically travel to another time, but we can get glimpses of them in unedited and unplanned snapshots.