The Family Photo – The 80’s, The Way Back and The Now

Thinking back to turning pages in my childhood albums I realized that you could perfectly preserve a memory without the photo itself being “perfect”. In a time where each click of the button cost you roughly $.50 and you had to wait weeks to finish a roll of film only to wait another week to develop it, and upon pick up you’d carefully place each photo into an album to be lovingly admired for decades, each photo was truly priceless.

Looking back at those childhood photos most of them are good quality photos. Maybe people inherently knew they had 1 chance to get it right, to look at the camera, smile and keep their eyes open, not 32 consecutive opportunities and 32 more an hour later. Maybe the picture taker knew to time things just right and not to waste a single shot. Or maybe only bringing the camera out on family vacations and birthday parties meant people wanted to perform for the picture. Whatever the reason fewer pictures still resulted in perfectly captured memories, only one photo eliciting all kinds of reminiscing.

I see a childhood photo of me on a quad at my great grandfather’s farm and I’m immediately brought back there. The visiting, the horseback riding, the quadding, exploring the old barn, farmhouse and general store. The long car rides, interrupted by backseat sibling fights and the camping that brought us there, summer after summer.

When my mom said “cheese,” we listened. Perhaps she had more authority than I, an authority that is grown over time that comes with parenting 4 children and is harvested on photo day, or perhaps we sensed the desperation in her voice as she knew she had one shot to capture this moment or perhaps it was simply because the camera didn’t make a daily appearance and we vainly wanted our likenesses forever preserved on film and eventually mounted behind thin clear plastic in the family album.

Even preteen emo me smiled during the annual Santa photo. You see when your 2 youngest siblings are 6 and 8 years younger than you, there has to be a preteen Santa photo, thanks mom. Thankfully the fridge was the family facebook and no one outside of visiting family and friends were forced to see it.

Going back way further, when a photo was only taken every year or two or three, no one messed that up. NO ONE. No cheesy grins, the photographer didn’t even chance a cheesy grin by not yelling “cheese!” at all. Everyone came when they were called, everyone looked in the right direction. Everyone. Got. It. Right. I wonder was the pressure the same? Rather than cleaning toys littered on the floor (ie. Throw them on the other side of the room) as I frequently do, did the homeowner repaint the house? Did they mend the fence or trim the trees for such a momentous occasion?

Going back further still to the painted portrait, it occurred maybe only once or twice in a lifetime. The person commissioned to paint the portrait was operating the original photo shop, removing blemishes, smoothing hair, and adding furniture here or a fireplace there to make the family seem just a little more perfect and prestigious. And they sat still for hours, presumably children too, lest history forget them.

My kids know, they just know that there are countless photos of them on my phone, and they know there will be infinitely more. There is no need for them to smile or look even remotely in the right direction. I assume that’s why photographers and parents alike have begun shooting “artistic” or “candid” photos, showcasing their children’s features and the lovely people they are without capturing the purposeful side gaze and half smile. I asked on a mommies group how on Earth are people managing to get halfway decent photos of 2 children, one recommended delicious bribes, another a kazoo. I tried the candy. It doesn’t work.

Having the ability to take 32 shots in the blink of an eye and being able to delete the m almost as quickly leaves us feeling like we can get the perfect shot. Social media has compelled us to step up our photo game. You can follow professional photographers posting perfect photos of families wearing fancy clothes, traipsing through the forest or a naked baby sleeping peacefully, precariously balanced on a bed of perfect white flowers. All I want is 2 kids looking in the same ish direction, a tidy ish background and mostly clean faces, to add to the large number of similar ish photos stored on my computer.

Sometimes I am too busy trying to perfectly capture a moment that I sometimes forget to enjoy it. All too often I find myself appreciating a moment and sprint down the hall to grab my phone or camera, for fear that I will forget it, because I want it. I want it locked forever in my digital data space, but I return to my kids doing something different and I missed the rest of it. I know the best pictures are locked away in my memory anyway, the bed time snuggle moments the just after nap time conversation moments or the moments when I truly see just how little they are and want to drink it all in, absorb it into my very being.

So when they don’t smile, or stand still or if they flip their shirts over their faces displaying their glorious belly buttons, I’m trying to laugh because it just doesn’t matter.

Perhaps, less IS more, I’m working on it.