Family, Fear, Regret and Photography
October 23, 2020
This year, 2020, has been tough on most of us. I'm coming off a pretty emotional day. I lost my Mother, Donna, in July. I'm taking care of her final affairs. One of those tasks is dealing with her house and her possessions.
I spent the lion's share of the day looking through my mother's photographs. She loved to take snapshots! Any time she traveled, she had some type of point & shoot camera with her. At one point, she had a drawer filled with more that a decade's worth of undeveloped film; 110, 35 mm and even Kodak discs. I occasionally ribbed her about it. Ever going to empty that drawer, Mom? She couldn't keep up with her own shutter-bugging!
Mom and I in Maine in 2007. My favorite picture of us.
Somewhere in the early 2000s, she must have decided it was time to develop that drawer. She left behind shoe boxes of photos. Thousands of snapshots. Don't get me wrong, I still found a stash of dozens of undeveloped rolls and discs, but she found some money and got a bunch developed. My bet is that she developed her newer rolls - what's left might not be viable for development anymore.
There are a few categories in her snaps. Family is big. Pictures of myself, pictures of her boyfriend, Rich, who we lost to cancer in 2016. Shots of her parents and her sister and her nephews and her aunt. Lots of family at a lot of events. Weddings and graduations and birthdays and lots and lots of Christmas - she loved Christmas.
Rich in Seattle in 2002. I miss you, Pops.
Her other big category was travel. Donna was a driver! She would pick a direction and off we would go for the day. Every twisted back road of Missouri and Illinois was her playground. She couldn't afford much, but she squeezed out every ounce of adventure she could get from a tank of gas. Her camera always came along. She snapped up trees and water and historical markers by the roll.
I guess she and Rich had a similar hobby. Rich always seemed so different from my mom, but not even he could slow down Donna's wandering wheels! For them, a day trip wasn't enough. I found snaps of Memphis and Fort Worth and Kansas City. Even a day trip to Chicago, visiting me on a work trip. And so much Washington state! They visited my now ex-wife and I several times in the Seattle area. Then, after a couple days with us, Mom and Rich got on the road! There are stacks of snaps of trees and mountains and water. There are a ton of pictures of the Pacific tide rolling in.
In 2007 my in-laws invited all of us to Maine for Christmas. We had a great time! This is reinforced by the fact that there are envelopes and envelopes of snapshots from Maine. The Family, the decorated tree, the presents, the cats (Maine coons - adorable!). Then, there are snaps of snow and trees and lighthouses and the Atlantic tide rolling in.
Christmas in Maine, 2007.
I spent most of the afternoon today looking at snaps of dead people, tears rolling down my cheeks. It was an emotionally draining day. I've had one seriously ugly cry just writing this post. I should be in bed but I need to write this all out before I can rest.
I looked at all these photos, all of these moments, a collection of time in motion. I can see my mom and Rich and myself age. She took frequent pictures of her house, the one I am now cleaning out. You can put them side by side and watch her house decay over the decades. My age is really hitting me. Her parents died at 65 and 66, she died at 67. Here I am, talking about starting “Career Three” and going through “The Process” and I will turn 49 early next month. I'm looking at all this photography and realizing just how little I know. I'm looking at all this travel and realizing just how hard it's going to be turning that into any kind of career, especially at this age and in my current health.
What am I going to do with all of those photos? I have no idea. I don't have any kids to pass them down to when I'm gone. Maybe I'll buy a scanner and put them on a portable hard drive. I don't know. But, after looking through them, I have learned a couple of things.
The first thing I learned is that my sweet mother loved her cheap cameras and apparently every one of her cameras produced pictures that were completely out of focus! Good gravy! Hundreds of pics, stacks of glorious memories - just big, colorful smudges! She must have been disappointed again and again when she opened up her developed photos and they were all blurred beyond recognition.
Next I learned something I already knew, but I now have hundreds of examples of what not to do: fill up the frame with your subject. I don't know how many times today I looked at a photo and asked “What the hell is that?” There is some tiny, blurry thing in the sky or in a tree. And there are half a dozen of these photos, all of which she paid to have developed! Finally you figure out that it's a blimp in the sky and it's a squirrel in the tree. But, even though these were inscrutable photos, my mother kept them as treasured memories.
I learned that I am happy I live in the age of digital photography. With a literal half push of a button, my subject comes into sharp focus. With another button, I can zoom right up on the UFO or the tree critter and then hit'em with the built in flash! And, I can see all of this on the built in LCD view finder. From my first digital camera, to the one I just bought, I have adored digital photography.
I remember the phone call when my mom asked me about digital cameras. I told her for her needs, she could buy just about anything. If she just wanted to try it out, there were cameras on the toy isle that had limited features but cost less than $20. I told her I bought a couple of lovely cameras at pawn shops for well below retail that worked great (I still have a point and shoot Panasonic Lumix, I think I paid $35 for it and it still takes decent pics.) Turns out she bought a little Kodak - I think I told her to specifically not buy a Kodak, but knowing her, if it was on sale, she couldn't resist! When I got her a smart phone, I showed her the camera features, this way she was never anywhere without a camera.
Statue of Popeye, Chester, IL, 2017 - I was teaching my Mom how to use the camera on her new phone.
Looking back, I wish I had encouraged my mom to get some better equipment, I could have bought her some equipment, encouraged her to embrace the hobby. But, I know that wasn't her. She just wanted to point and shoot. And that's just fine. That was Donna. She encouraged me. She showed me the joy of pointing at life with a lens and holding a moment longer than I was ever likely to remember it.
Looking through the pictures today, pictures that not only belonged to my mom, but some to other deceased family members, it was really driven home that I come to point and shoot photography genetically. It's in the blood. There were a stack of pictures taken by her father, my grandfather, Frank, the Jury Rigger. He was the first photographer in the family, the original shutter bug. I think mom got it from him. I think I got it from both of them. I remember a pile of pics from his house after he died, several were up close of his face, he's grinning into the lens. Mugging. Frank, without a display and in black & white, was taking selfies thirty or forty years before anyone else! Thus, I learned from him and I was taking selfies ten years before the rest of you all!
Disposable camera, bathroom heat lamp, circa 1998. Selfie OG!
I'm grateful the shutter bug was passed to me. I'm grateful to have had an example in my life who didn't take pictures for love or fame, but for the joy of snapping.
Thanks, Mom. I miss you very much.