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Black & White - Story #10 of 52


(around 1969. L-R: our dad, me, my sister, my brother, Grandma & Grandpa Bailey)

If you’re a baby boomer like me, you probably have several photo albums (or storage totes) filled with memories from your past. Photos from family get-togethers like baptisms, birthdays, Christmases, and graduations stand as silent but poignant momentos. If you have children, there will likely be an abundance of photos of your first-born - every moment of their early life captured, from their first day home to their first steps, first tooth, their first everything - while your subsequent offspring will likely take up much less space in those albums. Back then, we used real cameras with real film (weird, I know) and once a roll of film was full it had to be dropped it off to be processed. In the days before one-hour processing we’d often wait a week or more to get the pictures back. We never knew exactly what surprises that envelope would contain and often there were more bad shots than good ones but there were always a few gems that made their way into an album.

I also remember when photos were black and white, taken with simple box-like cameras. The starkness seen in those pictures is raw and real. There is no color to distract the eye. You see only what is in front of you yet there's a certain mystique to black and white photos that hint at a backstory; possible secrets lurking behind the sombre faces and stiff postures, that leaves one intrigued long after the photo is seen. Expressions of shyness or self-consciousness were common since no one knew quite how to pose. Smiles were rare. It probably felt silly and self-indulgent to smile at a box - unlike now, where selfies are the norm.

Technology has given us smartphones equipped with high-quality cameras that are instantly available and, though we’re taking more photos than ever before, we rarely look at them afterwards. Our moments are fleeting and easily dismissed as we look for the next cool photo-op. We are able to edit, add filters, delete and retake pictures in seconds and make them more perfect so that no one can see the flaws. But that’s missing the point, isn’t it? Real life isn’t perfect. Those flaws - the squinting eyes, the downcast look, the messy hair, untucked shirts - captured in a split-second, make the memories more tangible somehow.

I find it sad that photos are no longer printed out. Now they’re saved in some obscure place called the Cloud where we tend to forget about them and certainly don’t have a physical photo stored anywhere in an album or shoebox. My goal, in the next few months, is to recover the hundreds (maybe 1,000’s) of photos that are stored on my phone (or in the Cloud) and print them out. Someday, I want my grandchildren to be able to sit together and relive the memories I’ve captured as they flip through the pages. They’ll laugh and reminisce as they recognize the trips we took with them, the activities we enjoyed together - sledding, crafting, riding quads at the farm, building forts, playing with baby kittens - and I know they’ll feel a surge of warmth deep in their hearts to see their younger selves and to remember those moments when life was simpler; when they weren’t caught up in the craziness of making a living, raising a family, navigating the rat-race. I like to imagine them running their fingers over the photos with a soft caress as though their feelings from those times will be absorbed back into their consciousness.

We may not be able to stop progress but I think we have an obligation to hold on to some of the best parts of the past. Photographs - real photographs we can store in an album - are one of those best parts. Whether they're in color or black and white, they have the power to connect us to the people, places, and experiences that helped shape our lives. So, take the time to get those pictures off of your phone and out of the Cloud and get them printed. Even if all you do is put them in a shoebox, someday someone will discover that box and it will be like discovering the greatest of buried treasures.

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