I’ve been on the opposite side of albums for a while now.
My family never really made them. Photos were stored their yellow envelopes in boxes under the pinball machine. Upon getting them back from the “photoman,” a camera booth in the center of a parking lot near my house, my mother, father and I would sit together, outside on the patio if it was nice, and review the photos together. We always had two copies, and sometimes I would hold one in my hand if I liked it, or glance quickly and pass it away if I didn’t. As I grew older, I cared more about the serial nature of the photos, keeping them the way they came. I see that a lot in how I am now, and its become increasingly so.
I talked with Janet Delaney about her experiences with photo albums over the weekend. The ability of an object or idea to occupy significance in different ways in different lives is truly amazing. Her multigenerational albums are a study in dicipline. Looking at the albums separate and as a whole renewed my appreciation for all the time, the energy, the memory, the belief necessary to complete an album. To come to terms with what has been and take record after the event has passed is a kind of study of ones life. Whose responsibility is this record keeping, and is it a responsibility at all? These are questions I don’t know the answers to, but want to explore in my own life.
This is how I looked on my 21st birthday:
9/29/2009 at 9:42 am
Talking with Janet also brought up other issues and things to explore in my research. My view on albums is limited by my lack of historical references and technological understand of the time periods I am looking at, and my interpretations may be narrowed as such. Finding a balance between my eye as I have trained it and the research I will consume in the coming months will be an interesting development.
New knowledge: Looking through viewfinders of cameras in the late 60s was hard, and film was expensive as well. This plays into the type of pictures which were produced, though the difference between the albums I saw was remarkable. Right now I am considering questions of how albums can be diagnostic vs. documentary, or both. The experience shown in the albums was the life lived but it may be framed in a certain way.
I keep wondering. I keep looking.
Leave a Reply