When I graduated from high school, my grandfather gave me a photo album that he had put together. In it was a photo history of my life, from birth to graduation, with hand-typed text describing the photos and what he remembered about each date. He put everything in an expandable album, and the idea was for me to continue to add to it over the years. I did a pretty good job through my college years, but then I got behind.
The cover quote is:
“Like gentle waves
Returning to the sunlit shore…
Sweet memories returning
To the heart once more.”-Amy Cassidy
Now that my wife and I are adopting, I look at that album frequently, and think about how cool that was for my grandfather to do that. He didn’t do it for just me, but for most of his grandchildren (although, I was named after him. He is William H. Hall, Sr.) Wow, talk about dedication!
My point here is that there is something to be said for a physical photo album with actual pictures in it. Today, we have CDs, DVDs, the internet, email, …etc., all very impersonal modes of communicating with people. Not to mention the blog that I am currently posting in.
Nicole, over at the scrapbooking blog, has a recent post about personalization. This, I think, is more important than ever in these times of impersonal communication. When I think about what my grandfather did, I think about how much he must have loved me and my cousins, and how he showed that by spending so much time creating this thing of beauty for all of us. But it wasn’t just the photos, in fact it was the personal messages that he typed and pasted in the pages.
When I look at the pictures, the text brings the important moments of my life vividly into focus, and brings back the emotions, smells, and sounds of those times. I had three younger sisters, so there was never a lack of sounds. I remember hiking with the family, in Yellowstone park, back when all the news about the Grizzly bears there were eating people. Remember that? Well, we were hiking along, and I thought about how the park rangers and signs along the way said to make lots of noise, to keep the bears away. And I thought “no problem with that, with my three sisters!”
I write in this blog to let everybody know about photography, different techniques and tips, and about cameras. I also like to challenge people, including myself, to learn and try new things. My challenge today is for you to get some photo postcards, and send someone you love a postcard with one of your photos on the card. Go old school and write a note on the back, and send it off with some postage. Remember postage? Stamps?
I’m going to write to my grandfather and thank him for getting me started in photography, and for the photo album. Who will you send yours to?