"Photographs and Memories ..."

The Kid, 2nd from left
Garrett, far right

Old photographs have been in the news lately. Someone lucked out and bought for $10 a tintype of a picture that shows both Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, the man who would shoot the kid dead in 1881. (Link to New York Times story.) Another one that hit the news was, of course, of Sen. Al Franken, feigning a groping move on a sleeping woman. (That went over well ...) (Link to Atlantic story about it.)

Old photographs have played a recent role in our lives, too. We've been cleaning out our basement (due to our waterproofing project down there), and in a box of assorted things, we found this photo of our son, Steve (about one year old), with my late father, Edward Dyer (who was about sixty at the time). They are out on the back porch of my parents' home, 3500 Wakonda Court; Des Moines, Iowa. Both my parents were teaching at Drake University at the time. I took the picture with a 35mm camera--summer of 1973.

I love this picture; I don't know why it was in a box. But it ain't no longer: In a frame, on a shelf where I can see it every day.

Just one more now. The other day a friend from high school, Ralph Green, published on FB some photos he'd found of our class' tenth reunion--1972. There's a picture of Joyce and me at a table with some others. I'm talking with my former basketball coach (and driver ed teacher!), Bob Barnhart (RIP). Priceless. (I'm the guy with the mustache and white sweater, to the right-center.)

Okay, we're almost there--almost to the point I want to make. But one more thing first. On Saturday night I saw Daddy's Home 2, and there's a scene at a school production, and when the thing begins, every parent in the audience whips out his or her phone or tablet and begins photographing/videoing (?) the action on the stage. Lots of laughs in the audience.

And then it was I began to think about how in these days--when virtually everyone is walking around with a camera--photographs are so abundant that I wonder if they can any way be as--what?--precious(?) as they once were--when a few photographs lived in few photo albums.

I have so few photographs of the people I knew and loved in childhood--in fact, I have none of some relatives I knew well. So different from today ... My iCloud holds so many pictures now--yet it's really holding no pictures at all. Just digital information. Fragile digital information. I don't print any of them very often. Store them anywhere. They are literally molecules in a cloud.

I saw a video ad the other day for a new smart phone-camera that responds to voice commands. A woman is out floating in the water saying "Selfie! Selfie! Selfie!" and you can hear the camera's sound--click! click! click!

Another precious moment captured.

Link to video/song: Jim Croce, "Photographs and Memories" (1972)