Family Photos
By: Jarrod E. Stephens
The Ashland Beacon
I’m sure that you have noticed that everywhere you go you see people taking photos and video with their smartphones. Point and shoot technology has made the capture and creation of photos easier than ever. It doesn’t seem that long ago whenever we used the trusty 110 or 35 mm cameras to capture special moments. After taking the photo you had to take the film to a development center or send it off to Kodak or some other film company. Sometimes the results were awesome while other times they could be awful.
While photography has been around since the 1800s, it took decades before individuals could own a camera and capture everyday life as a memorial and have it on paper to share. Some of the old Daguerreotype and tin type photos are amazing to look at because of their historical qualities. Most however lack details and depth simply because of their medium but they are beautiful.
In the late 1800s the Kodak No. one camera could be used to take photos and once you finished the film you had to mail the entire camera to Kodak for development. Kodak would then reload the camera with film and send it back with your photos. The famous Kodak Brownie camera was an early model of personal camera that made photography affordable and accessible to more people.
The 1940s saw the introduction of the instant Polaroid camera which could snap the photo and instantly eject it. If you knew anyone who owned one, then you remember how cool it was to carefully hold the fresh photo and watch the images appear. The camera revolution continued with more powerful lenses and features which made capturing family photos possible to nearly everyone.
It’s no family secret, but whenever my little twin sisters were born, my mom went photo crazy. My dad even bought her a new 35 mm camera to capture their every move. Kodak, Polaroid or whatever company that she bought her film from had to see a boost in sales and stock prices because of their birth. Our mailbox became a landing spot for pictures of the perfectly matched little girls. Albums were filled and revisited whenever we wanted to be reminded of every breath the twins took.
In all fairness, mom did take photos of all our family events, vacations and special moments and then placed them in albums. I used to love looking through the albums that included photos from several decades prior to my birth and up to the present. Names and dates were scribbled across the bottom or back revealing who was in the pictures.
Fast forward to today and you mainly see people passing phones around while sharing photos of their family and adventures. Bulky albums have all but disappeared. Swiping through perfect photos that can remove blemishes and sharpen what it captures seems ideal but the tactile feeling of holding the picture and even seeing the imperfections has been lost.
Sure, it’s true that I too enjoy being able to instantly edit images to make sure that I capture moments in a beautiful way. However, it’s just another piece of evidence about our instant download generation. People have little patience and live at the speed of light.
Every time that I mention the fact that I still have our pictures printed, someone will say, “You are one of those weird ones.” Well, I very well may be one of those weird ones but whenever I want to look back on the good old days, I don’t have to hold the one thing that has captured our society and is holding it hostage, the smartphone. As for me and my house, I would rather search for my family photos under a dusty bed than search through the cloud of technology.
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