Photography as Memory–Squares of
Paper
If a natural disaster, such as a flood, fire or tornado were about to strike your home, would the box of family photos be amongst the items you tried to save? I ask this after listening to a segment on a public radio program called The Story about a man who lost everything in the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri. It was followed by an interview with a woman who has spent the last year attempting to find, archive and reunite photos dispersed by the storm with the people who lost them. Their stories made me think about how photographs—which help reconstitute fading memories—have become even more transient due to digital technology.
Up
until the recent past, photography was not quite a luxury so much as a semi- expensive
undertaking. I remember taking a trip across the country with my Kodak
Instamatic, shooting photos of everything that interested me (and there was a
lot to interest a 14-year-old boy). I used up my allotted film and upon
returning home was able to afford processing and printing for only a few of the
rolls. I still have several of the spent film cassettes in my desk patiently
awaiting development.
Taking
pictures was a slow and conscious, as well as self-conscious process. It was a
formal act, a memorial act that transcended the moment of the shutter opening
and closing. It became an activity integrated into the importance of everything
that happened during that special day—a family reunion, a trip to Disneyland, a
proud shot of the new car, and so on.
With
a note written on the back of the photo, any future family member had access to
the meaning of that image. The picture was durable and could last a century; it
had a forever quality because the technology of film-based photography had been
evolving over 100 years, and the bugs were worked out, at least for black &
white. After the roll of film came back from the drugstore, the photographs
with their corresponding negatives entered a book or box for safekeeping. Our
parents pulled them them out from time to time (or as a seasonal ritual) in
order to show us or remind us of something personal, familial or momentous.
This
rumination leads me to wonder how photography in its electronic incarnation
will hold up to time. A digital file can’t fade, but it can become corrupted. We
now don’t have to worry about the cost of film and so are free to photograph as
much and as often as we want. Will we wade through the 500 shots taken at
baby’s first birthday party? If not, then do they have an importance for remembering
that event? If we do save them, is the photo-filled box, loaded with tangible
reminders, replaceable with a Facebook page or an account on Tumblr? Will we
lose some form of connection to those events when we no longer have tactile
contact with our memories?
Tell me what you think.
Frame
2A
Addendum:
This is the link to The Story. Host Dick
Gordon interviewed Tom Cook about his experiences in the tornado. (There is a
photo of Cook on The Story holding a
picture of his wife as he stands surrounded by what was once his home and
neighborhood. Gordon also interviewed Angela Walters, who has spent the last year
collecting photos lost from the storm. You can check it out here: http://thestory.org/archive/The_Story_52212.mp3/view.
And here’s a link to the Facebook page where the photos are archived waiting to be reunited with their owners:
http://www.facebook.com/lostphotosofjoplin.
And here’s a link to the Facebook page where the photos are archived waiting to be reunited with their owners:
http://www.facebook.com/lostphotosofjoplin.
Great ideas raised here, both on photography, memory, and identity; and the opacity and ephemerality of digital media. As you said, the physical photo persists in an immediately accessible form over time (well, you said it more succinctly), while digital media is more susceptible to destruction via corruption and damage to physical storage. Also, ya can't see a digital image without a computer or something like it - *not* immediately accessible.
ReplyDeleteI back up constantly in fear of losing my photos (and have had hard drives fail out from under me, making me glad for my paranoiac approach). But I mourn for the loss of quick looking that real prints provide. Yes, digital images can be printed, but when you have thousands of them, it is unlikely. I do not know what the answer is.
Hi Kerry,
DeleteThanks for your comments and ideas. I agree that not only do you need a computer to look at the image, or some other electronic device. It also changes the ritual of how we look at the photograph or image. I wonder if this change, in handling the print and in keeping it safe for other generations to view, will effect an alteration in the meaning of that image? Does ritual, the way we view and preserve photographs, give that image an added importance? Which then begs the question, how important are our photographs as touchstones for our past memories and experiences? An issue for another blog entry.
I am with you on backing up my computers. I have several backup drives for each. I've had crashes and freezes that have obliterated some information, as well. It is scary to think that those 1's and 0's are so fragile. We just have to have faith that technology will come to the rescue..., not!
There's also something to be said for the tactile experience of handling a physical photo that, in some indefinable way, enhances our emotional connection to the people and/or places in that photo. It's the same with books and vinyl records.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and that emotional connection is one of the things we will be missing. I think that comes from the ritualistic way we incorporate how we physically handle that object. We all have our own particular procedures that we go through when getting it ready to be used. The way we slip a record out of its cover, look for dust or scratches, clean it and put it on the record player. How we pick up a book and open it and begin to read. Or how we hold a photograph and look at it. Sometimes these are subtle and brief and sometimes more complex, many stepped. But it is the ritual we create to interact with the object that binds us to it. Thanks Dean!
DeleteLarry,
ReplyDeleteI find this post very interesting because when asked what I would grab in the event of a disaster I too would answer, photographs. And since I can remember, this has been my mother's answer as well.
These photographs are more important than any other tactile item and I believe it is because 'things' are replaceable, photographs on the other hand, are not. If the photos are destroyed then that memory is, in a sense, destroyed or forgotten. As humans, I believe we have a fear of forgetting and this may be a reason as to why photographs are so important to us.
I teach swim lessons to young children and I see parents with their DSLR cameras snapping hundreds of photos of their children learning to swim. Now a days capturing these moments is easier than it has ever been with most phones having a camera and the accessibility of newer, nicer digital cameras at cheaper price points. But I have to ask does taking 200 photos of your child's one swim lesson actually capture a meaningful moment in time or are you just documenting an event? And does that even matter?
I also wonder with the new age of digital photography do we even view the thousands of photos we take? Does that depend on the type of person and the importance they place on those photographs? Personally, I do not look through my digital photos to reminisce, but rather when I need a specific image for one reason or another. On the other hand, my father is ALWAYS pulling up photos on the iPad to show us and to reminisce on past trips and events. So does digital versus analog even matter as long as they can provide the same connection to the viewer?
For me, something about tactile photographs is irreplaceable. It is a more personal experience and something you can actually connect with. There have been numerous times looking through old photo albums where I see a photograph that will make me laugh or cry or feel some sort or emotion and it takes me back right to that very moment. And I believe photographs have that power to provide a sense of time and place. To me they represent a meaningful memory rather than an ordinary moment in time.
- Meagan Dumford
Thanks Meagan, You bring up some interesting points. I agree with you, our box of family photos would be the first thing I grabbed as well. For me it's just not their tactile quality alone that's important but in holding the photograph I can sometimes remember the taking of it as well. By its shape, rectangular or square, I know which camera I used and sometimes there is a date stamped in the white border, which helps me know when it was taken, particularly if I didn't take it.
DeleteAlthough all that information is now in the metadata that is imbedded with the image, it seems like a more impersonal process to retrieve it. It's like collecting data rather than eliciting memories. When your dad shows you images on his iPad, it really is kind of the same as pulling out a photo from a box. For me though, the difference is in how you view the image. The analogy is, photos on paper are a bit like people, they have spots and folds, some are still perfect but as they age, they change. This is the same for books and records as Dean mentioned above. It feels like they have a lifespan, they have to be handled a certain way, and that we are in some way, responsible for their well being. Digital images, have a throw-away quality to me. As you mentioned we can take a mind numbing number of them, we erase them as we go, and we may never store them on anything beyond the flash card, computer or iPad. We tend not to keep them in the same way for future use. They seem a bit indestructible, even though they are more ephemeral than paper. Our attitude toward photos, books and music is changing to be sure and it's going to be interesting to see how far this all goes. Will your children have the same reaction as you do to photographs, will they laugh or cry while looking at an electronic image? Will it become as special and as precious?
In a disaster I feel photographs are a key object for most people to take with them. I know myself would want to bring the most important photos with me if I had to vacate my house due to a disaster. This topic thou makes me think about another question that I noticed around my place as well as in the homes of others. The placement or display in my home or pictures are displayed in plain sight right by the front door. I believe I did this subconciously to look at on my way out the door. My question is do we place these important objects by the exits of our homes for instinct purposes? These could be easy recognized and seen objects on the way to the door with quick access to acquire while leaving in the presence of a disaster. Just something that interested me to notice in peoples houses. Does anyone else have pictures of loved ones close to there front door or to an exit?
ReplyDeleteShanan Roberts
Hi Shannon,
DeleteI'm sure people have put their photos in a easy to get to place, especially if they live in fire or flood prone areas. Hmmm..., perhaps there is an interesting product here, a ready to go cabinet that houses all your valuables for easy evacuation.
Thanks for in input,
Larry
This thought of having photos to help you fill in gaps of memories is a very interesting topic for me. I have a mother who has documented my life in photo albums all the way up to my college years so from birth to age 18. And still to this day she documents vacations, birthdays, family events, and anything of that genre. (almost anything worth remembering) In documenting these she does scrap books. We have book shelf upon book shelf ful of these albums. I have my own that my mom has given me of my whole high school career. I love to look through these when I have a free chance. I can remember so much from them. We constantly have asked the question as a family what would be the first thing you would save in a fire and my whole family always says i would help mom get the scrap books out of the house.
ReplyDeleteNow that I am on my own i take my own pictures of whatever pleases me. I take photos to remember and I take photos to put on social media. I have them all backed up on a hard drive but i do always worry that I will loose them. I like to think any photo I take is a memory that i want to remember. I started taking pictures with film and have now progressed to digital. I feel there is no difference in the tactile or digital. I can still view them and I can always print the digital to make them tactile. If you look in my room now it is littered with my printed pictures.
I enjoy the way I take my pictures, and I always enjoy looking at them all again. I always worry about loosing them. It is always worrisome when you think you have lost some. I love taking pictures, and taking as many as I can. 500 pictures to 3 pictures the memory is still the same for me!
Nic Forsberg
Hi Nic,
DeleteThanks for the reply. You must have been the first born! Kids down the line seem to get short shrift when it comes to having mom and dad document their lives. As for the amount of pictures, I know what you mean, it becomes a task to go through them all. But, it seems like you don't mind having to navigate 500 at a time. After you go through them do you pull up all 500 again, or do you sort out the best of the bunch to nudge your memory of that place or event? I'd think it would get rather cumbersome to go through the whole heap to review them all every time.
Perhaps as well, your's will be the generation that no longer needs the physical connect to objects like my generation does. Ownership of a thing, especially something that is a creative work like music and film is slipping into a renters relationship with that object, CD, DVD or photograph. It's interesting to ponder where that will take us and ultimately with no objects out in the world, what impact will that have on the access to information?
I think having the physical photos around the house is a reminder of my childhood and how my parents kept all the memories from before I was even born around and they tell stories about the photos and the emotions attached to the photos can be seen in the way the photos are taken care of. And you don't get the same effect nowadays with everything being digital because when we could only get one picture we felt it more precious. I have physical and digital copies of photos because I know that one day we can lose everything digital and it may never be brought back. Photos are my memory because I love to document my life through photos because I don't have a great memory so I can keep my memories in a more solid form through photos. So in the case of the fire or natural disaster I would run for both my box of photos and my hard drive. Everything else is replaceable except for memories, we only have one of those and they fade.
ReplyDeleteDanielle Rios
Ever since I could remember, I have always loved taking pictures of everything. I would always have my camera with me on family trips and couldn’t wait to get them developed when I got home. I think that having tangible images are more meaningful than digital. I would much rather flip through pages of albums than press the arrow key on a keyboard. I feel that they are more thought about when taken because unlike with digital you don’t have an endless amount of frames. I always love to pull out the old family albums or my own pictures to recall past memories. After my dad switched over to digital we had our computer crash and many photos of trips and horse shows were lost. My dad is into genealogy, so to him pictures mean a lot. We have so many old pictures of the family. I think it’s fascinating to see images of great great grandparents and other relatives. So if my house was about to be engulfed in flames I would not think twice about grabbing every last photo I had.
ReplyDeleteBrittney Tomasi
This topic is very compelling for me because as a child I was enthralled with snapping photos with basic film cameras which had limitations on how many images I was able to capture. By the time I reached junior high we had gone digital and I was no longer confined to the limitations of film photography although missed out on much of the excitement of anticipating receiving the developed images. Since the number of precious family photos exceeds my ability to keep track of each of them I often find it a bit overwhelming when going through and attempting to catalog and organize them in any cohesive fashion. My desire however is to spend a significant amount of time his summer doing just that. My goal is to organize tangible copies of all of our family photos in addition to canning and creating digital copies as back up. Ultimately I would like to create digital copies to be distributed among family members as a means of sharing reassured memories but also as a means of documenting family history. My initial reaction in the event of a natural disaster would be to save the family photos however because of the vast amount of images and because they have had the tendency of being strewn in various places around the house it is not realistically feasible to save them should a natural disaster occur tomorrow. This is why I feel it is equally important to have physical photographs to sift through when you are feeling sentimental but also to have a digital back up just in case. Another thing I find precious about the physicality of an actual photograph is the hand written note of importance on the back allowing me to make an emotional connection to a photograph which otherwise would simply be jut an image without meaning. This is why when my bank account affords it I would prefer transforming my digital images to physical ones to increase my ability to preserve such memories for the future and leaving something for those whom I will one day leave behind when I am no longer around to have an emotion connect with their past.
ReplyDelete