I don’t remember how old I was when I realized that my parents had actually been children at some point – but once that reality hit, I was curious about what they were like as kids. What did they look like, what were they interested in, how did they play or dress? Thanks to the few photographs my sisters and I inherited, I have limited insight into their lives before they became parents. In my dad’s case, annual trips to the local photographer’s studio resulted in formal portraits of him (an only child) with his very stoic-looking parents. And for my mom, it was often an out-of-focus candid moment, usually of her hugging a dog or cat – which was a consistent theme throughout her life and helps explains the soft spot mom always had for animals. Another photo captures her big brother protectively wrapping his arms around her as they sit on a rock.
As most of you who are old enough (!) have probably done, my sisters and I would spend hours rifling through boxes of old photos – the formal studio portraits of our dad, (carefully encased in heavy, embossed folios), Brownie camera prints of our mom during her summer vacations and Kodachrome slides of me and my sisters standing in front of a distant landmark. It was of course great to view the prints or slides as soon as they came back from the drugstore, or to reminisce over piles of fading images – but I had no idea just how precious these photos would become over time.
The photos of my mom and dad with their parents are especially priceless because my dad’s father died when my dad was a teenager, and my mom’s father also died long before I was born – so the only connection I have to my grandfathers are my mom and dad’s stories – and the photographs.
Peals of laughter come flooding back every time I look at the photo of my mom with her glockenspiel, standing next to her brother when they were in the marching band together. And even though I know my dad was a champion violinist, I never heard him play because he gave it up before he went off to college – so the photo of him with his violin is especially poignant. And I can still picture the penny candies lined up in a row at Shifrin’s grocery store whenever I see the photo of my grandmother, wearing her ever-present apron, proudly posing inside her store. And of course me in my striped hip-hugger bell bottoms during the 70’s makes quite a fashion statement.
I don’t know if, when they were taking these photos, my parents or grandparents thought ‘these images will provide a legacy for our children and our grandchildren, and offer them insight into our lives.’ Probably not. But I think of that often, of what legacy we are all creating for our children, our grandchildren and beyond.
Nowadays, hardly a moment goes by without someone photographing it or videotaping it – and within minutes it’s posted on Facebook or emailed to family and friends. In today’s world of smart phones and compact cameras capturing compressed image files – saved only as a jpeg on a hard drive somewhere – I’m concerned about the quality of today’s photographic legacies. Will your children, and their children, have access to these photos? Will the quality of the images hold up over time, and will future technology even be able to view the images – or will they become like 8-track tapes that no one can play?
Building a lasting visual history for generations to come is a wonderful gift – for you and your children. Maybe one day your child will look at a large wall canvas of themself as a roly-poly infant and marvel at the physical similarity to their own child. Or your grandchildren will be amazed as they look through album pages filled with candid moments of their mom or dad as a child – captured during a Day in the Life session – and realize that their parents were actually kids too!
