Saturday 27 June 2015

I have just seen a dragon

cloud in the sky. It was a friendly, white, feathery dragon - but definitely a dragon. I wanted to keep it.
I do own a simple camera. The only thing I use it for is taking photographs of some of the knitting I do. I have never used it for anything else.
The Senior Cat doesn't own an actual camera at all. His i-pad must have one I suppose - but neither of us know how to use it. Oh no, wait a moment I suppose the mobile phone takes pictures? He would have even less idea how to do that...and so would I. 
There are very few family photographs from when I was a kitten. There was a family camera but getting a film and getting it developed was expensive beyond reason in most of the areas in which we lived. The habit of taking pictures simply did not grow. 
My brother-in-law here is a keen photographer. His children have an extensive record of their childhood. My brother's family also have plenty of photographs and more too.
"Save the photographs. Keep another set somewhere safe." This is advice given to people in bushfire prone areas. More than once I have heard people say the thing they miss not having the most is photographs of their family, friends, past events and so on. I can remember an appeal going out at university for a staff member who  had lost all the family photographs. When the album they made was presented to him he was close to tears. 
What is it with photographs? They do remind of us, of course they do. They are taken as "evidence" of what we did and enjoyed. They remind us of our emotions at the time and allow us to remember what someone or something actually looked like. Or, we think  they do. We all see things differently. Two people at the same event will not remember it in the same way. Photographs and films will allow them to remember it and share those memories. Saying "remember when..." is important.
Photographs allow us to remember ourselves.

2 comments:

Allison said...

Not just ourselves, Cat. I have a few photos of my mother's childhood, many of my father's childhood and family, a couple albums of my grandmother's from when she was in her late teens and early twenties, her wedding picture, and one of her grandmother as a child. I treasure all of them.

catdownunder said...

Yes, you're right Allison - like the portraits people had done before photographs.