I recently heard that a friend of mine has managed to reduce her collection of family photographs down to one single album. She is a minimalist, I am not. But it got me thinking about the twenty- something albums in my possession, many of them from my parents' collection and therefor many duplications. So last week during all the rain and thunder I decided to start a cull of my own and at least get the number of albums down to a reasonable size. So now we're down to twelve or so albums. It hasn't been easy and along the way I discovered some of the great recurring themes we all record, at times very badly. So before chucking them out I'd like to share with you some of my rejects.
"PEOPLE CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF EATING"
Actually these are some of our children enjoying Christmas dinner though it looks as if they hadn't eaten for over a week.
Hard to know what they were celebrating here but not a lot of enthusiasm.
A related theme: "PEOPLE LOOKING STUNNED IN THE KITCHEN"
Here I am in the dark, wondering why I am here at all.
And here's my sister looking pretty fed up. (Sorry, Lynne)
And now we come to "PEOPLE LEAVING"
And they just can't wait to get away!
Who were they anyway? Sometimes it's good to have notes on the photos.
Up next: "THE ROAD TRIP"
We've been waiting all year for this!
Oh, this is good.
As I said, it's always helpful to have notes on the pictures; wouldn't want to miss the moose.
Oh! Another moose. And a very tall one too. (Or very short hydro poles.)
Again, grateful for the notes on this wildlife shot.
Surely the end of the road...and a good thing too.
The next theme could be called "PEOPLE STANDING AROUND IN GROUPS"
Who are they and why are they there?
We have traveled from Kansas to the Land of Oz.
Well, I know that I am somewhere amongst this herd of graduates.
Living in Canada there is always the wonder of "SNOW"
And it's always so exciting, that first snowfall!
In the category of "YOU HAD TO BE THERE" we have:
This...on the back is written, 'septic system'
But here's a photo that was in the rejects pile until I reinstated it after noticing something.
Our cat, 'Ti-Gris', really looking like a tiger on the prowl. this one stays.
And so does the next one because it's so tiny and rare:
My great-grandmother, Eva.
I hope you enjoyed these photos and recognized some of the common themes from your own albums!
13 comments:
I think i have every one of those groups of photos...hee hee....thanks for sharing.
this is something i need to go through as well.
Tara, it's a big job. Do it while you're feeling ruthless!
I just laughed and laughed reading this post. It is so true and why do we keep doing it. I have so many photos of Christmas and opening gifts and now that "the kids" are older you can not even tell what year it is unless someone cuts their hair or recognizes a sweater they got.
Too funny. I definitely need to do this but I must have 20 books at least and several plastic bins full!
Not to mention all that are still on Flicker or in folders on my computer. Ugh!
Be brave, Barbara, and do it! It's fun, really, to discover what remains important in our lives.
Worth the laugh, Fran. Could be a great coffee-table book. (Do people still have coffee-tables? Or books?) It's the next Pet Rock. There could even be a web-site acting as a depository for generic family shots. We are a strange bunch, we humans.
I'm just shutting the door on my albums and boxes. As people in the family die off, I keep getting gifted their stuff. It goes in a box. Like them. (That was harsh) Well, if you can't laugh you're not alive.
Oh Lynne, I'm still larfing!
They might be rejects but I sure enjoyed looking at them. Thanks for sharing.
Odie
Glad you did, Odie! Thanks.
This was great! I'm glad you found a use for the photos: a very fascinating blog post.
I often wonder what will happen to my photos when I'm gone, since I have no kids to leave them to!
Knat, I don't want to leave my kids with a huge headache after I die. And yet when people are asked what they would grab first in a fire they say 'the family albums'!
We keep reading about the information explosion, but you have reminded us that, since the invention of the camera, there has been a visual explosion. It has only gotten worse with the advent of digital cameras, so that we now take 200 pictures when we used to take only 12 or 24. But the old photos are such treasures, with their strange sepia or pinkish tones, and people captured when they were young, and strangers who will always provoke the question "who was that?". What a wonderful, thoughtful and funny blog! Thanks Fran.
Thanks for reading, Evlyn. Hope this helped make your lunch hour more enjoyable.
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