Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Photographs and Memories


A few days ago, I thought it might be fun to scan some really old photos and put them up on Flickr. So I got down the old albums and began choosing a few favorites.

But then I realized how much junk I had from childhood - random pictures of bushes and blurry mountains, for example, many taken from the window of a speeding car. (When we took road trips, my parents never liked to stop!)

I also realized the sticky photo albums that held this stuff were falling apart, and many of the photos themselves had deteriorated so badly that you could barely see them. So last night, I got a new album and began culling a lot of those old photos. What a task! I was up until almost midnight. But of course I also had a ball, because interspersed with all the junk were quite a few gems.

I also had a strange movie experience last night. I began watching David Lynch’s “Lost Highway” and had a sneaking suspicion I’d seen it before. But I was never sure until about an hour and 45 minutes into the film, when a particularly remarkable death scene reminded me that I’d definitely seen it. Now THAT’s a memorable movie.

(Photo: Graffiti in Venice, Italy, Nov. 2007)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As much as I like to chuck old stuff, sometimes it's good to keep things. Going through the one or two boxes of what I call "memorabilia" always dredges up thoughts and experiences that would otherwise be forever lost. The objects, photos, letters, and so forth in these boxes hold the memories for me. It's the Reya Mellicker museum in a way.

Wonderful to hear about your own historical restoration!

Anonymous said...

Oh, what a fun trip down memory lane :) I wonder too, how playing with our past reverberates, thus other things surface within in us as the days pass...

Btw, I loved your first snow pics! We had ours this weekend, too.

Anonymous said...

romantic shot today.

A few years ago I got copies made of some of my old photos, so the very young kids in my family would have photos of their great great great grandparents, thru modern times. I wrote some personal notes about the photo subjects on labels and put the labels on the back of the photos.

Now I rarely look at my old albums/ boxes of photos because the last few years of photos are all in my computer. But I should go through them again.

Your photos--do you have any of the Florida sites like "Cypress Gardens" ? I have a few fading snaps from trips to FL. gardens.

Anonymous said...

i love lost highway. haven't seen his new one yet though. lookin forward to seeing the old images of baby reed!!

Anonymous said...

Did you finish cleaning up all of the photos? I think many of us can relate. It is such a different experience now with digital photography but I still feel like I need to have the picture in my hands to really enjoy it. It is what I am used to I suppose. I rarely take the time to look through old photos but when I do I can sit for hours.

Anonymous said...

I agree with gary--but I notice kids today want the photos on disc. tsk!