I still remember the first camera I bought. It was the summer of 2005 and I had just gotten my first job, teaching high school kids at a program run through Temple University. I got my paycheck and I went straight to Best Buy and bought a camera, one of those older digital Canon Powershot models. I loved that camera, it went everywhere with me. Every college party. Every family event. Everywhere. It lasted for nearly three years until my trip to Israel, where I tripped over a rock while planting a tree near Lebanon and cracked the camera’s LCD screen. I was crushed.
I think life should be recorded. Not everyone agrees, or even cares. My friends tease me about my picture-taking obsession. They think one should “live in the moment” instead of worrying about angles and lighting and frames. I tend to be the one who insists on taking pictures. If I’m at an event and nobody has a camera, I’ll borrow one of theirs and shoot a storm. Sometimes, to appease them, I’ll say “If its not on Facebook, it didn’t happen.” But that’s not really how I feel. As Freud would say, “It began in ze childhood…”
When I was eight, our house in Jersey burned down. Some things were salvageable. A few dishes here and there. A couple of toys in the basement. But the family photo albums were almost entirely gone. My parents, who’d taken very few pictures of me as a baby to begin with, lost the remainder of our photos. For years afterward, my mother went about the task of contacting family members and asking them to give back the photos she’d sent them of us. Now, she has two giant bins filled with albums, but it’s not really the same. The first few pages of the scrapbook my mother gave to me are sparse. There’s a picture of my mom holding me. Me with my older brother. Climbing the bed. Playing with blocks. That’s really it. I don’t know what I looked like in my Sunday best. Or at six months. A year and a half. In all the photos I have the same expression, completely placid, almost expressionless. My eyes are very serious, although my mother tells me I was a happy child. I don’t have any photos of me laughing or crying. Life should be recorded.
People forget. My mind is a sieve. If I didn’t take a photo, I would be unable to recollect that person or that place. Perhaps not for the first year or so, but five years later, I would be sure to forget the details. Do you remember what you did five years ago? How you looked? What you wore? Just take a photo. It lasts longer.
With those thoughts in mind, I re-started my Flickr page. The last time I put photos on Flickr, I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show and visited a country graveyard. This time I put up a few I took around Philly as well as all the photos I’ve been taking with my phone for the last few months. Enjoy!
And while you’re at it, check out the work of some of my favorite Philly photographers (and friends). Dragonballyee. Rob Bender. Andipantz. Philly Kev.Ericsmithrocks. Vincent Brown.
My apartment burned down a few years ago. Of all the things I lost, what broke my heart was a photo album my mom had put together with photos of my grandparents when they were younger, my parents when they were younger and my baby pictures. I’ve seen my mom 3 times since I left the Philippines when I was 13 and I knew how much those pictures mean to her. Eventually, I replaced the furniture and clothes and electronics, but that album will never be replaced.
I agree. It sucks that some people get annoyed when I take lots of pictures, but usually afterwards they’re somewhat grateful when they can check them out on facebook or flickr.
I love taking pics of things on my roadtrips, they don’t have to be of me, just things. It reinforces a memory that might otherwise dissolve over time.
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Well written post. And its very true about a picture being worth a thousand words.