Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Photographic memories

What to do with old photos? The real kind of photos, not the ones we take that never touch film. Some of my readers don't know what film is. They never had a Brownie or an Instamatic. They never bought film in cartridges or rolls, they never had to have it developed. Taking pictures used to be a process, you'd buy the film, use flash bulbs, using it sparingly because not only did you have to buy the film you also had to pay to have it developed. You'd either take it to a store and hand it over or you'd mail it off in the prepaid envelope and wait for a week or two to find the packet of photos in your mailbox. The only selfies you took were when your thumb accidentally got in the way of the lens or you hit the shutter when the camera was pointing down and you had a lovely picture of your left foot.
Those of you nodding your heads along with me know what I speak of. You also have photos or slide. Slide are photos you have to work twice as hard to see. But you have them, I have them. So what do we do with them?
I have mountains of photos. I don't throw them out because I dreamed once that I threw out all my photos and the people in them ceased to exist. Any of you book writing people who want to use that idea, it might make for a nice sci-fi short story. Just promise me I can read it! I knew my dream was a dream  but since then I've had a hard time throwing photos away. So I keep them and then the pile grows and grows and you know where this is headed... avalanche!
Now my dilemma, what do I do with these photos. Do I scan them and save them to some cloud in the sky? Do I learn to scrapbook and put them in nice neat piles of books? Should I return some to the people in them? I really don't know but I do know something has to give because there are too many of them. But how do you throw away memories like these:



Yes that my brother and me. I have photos of us growing up, of my kids growing up, of relatives as far back as cameras span. I have tin types, Kodachrome, black and white, color and Polaroid. I have slides, portraits, school photos, and negatives that ended up stray without an envelope to call home. I've got bins of old photo albums from my parent's childhoods, all glued in place with black corner holders and dates written underneath in white pencil.
I will probably weed through them all and liberate most from the herd. I'll scan them to save them and then comes my issue. How do I get rid of them? Do I have a bon fire? throw them in with the kitchen trash? bury them in shreds, I really don't know. Do spirits live with photos as many people think or are the memories so real that we feel the person in the photo? 

This is a real question: what do you do with old photos? 



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