I have always loved visiting my grandparent’s house for the obvious reason of seeing my grandparents – but also because stepping into their house is like stepping straight into a time machine. And no, I am not just talking about the multitude of area rugs and carpeting straight from the 1970s.
In the midst of my most recent trip, I came across a shoe box filled with boxes and boxes of 35mm camera slides. With easily 100 photos that haven’t been seen in over a decade surrounding me, I found myself entranced. I sat there for over an hour, one by one, bringing every individual slide up by the windowsill to uncover each picture.
We’ve all seen the photos of great-great-grandparents at their wedding, or your mom at your third cousin’s graduation party in 1986 with hair as big as the Empire State Building. Of course, these photos are important, but finding these forgotten boxes of memories tucked away made me realize the importance of documenting everyday life through film.
Pictures act as a bridge between the present and the past. The pictures I had seen previously of my great-grandparents, who I never got to meet, were at birthday parties or major life events, posed and perfectly placed. But seeing these photos was like really seeing them for the first time. These photos had life — real humans, real smiles. Lounging out in the sun, playing chess with my dad in the backyard, the table set for Easter dinner. The things in life that we see so often at the moment, but never think to document for the future.
As I progressed through the pile, I saw my dad graduate elementary school…then middle school…and then high school…and then it was as if on his eighteenth birthday the camera stopped working.
My dad, who also went to UMass Amherst, has virtually no pictures of him and his friends during their time here. When I talk to him, he always urges me to make memories and “take photos!” Now, I can safely say that I finally understand what he’s been trying to tell me. Sure, he’ll take that nostalgia with him always in his mind, but not having tangible memories to look back on later is like losing a whole chunk of time in the story of your life.
My experience with this shoebox full of photos made me feel the weight and importance of it all.
I am all for living in the moment, especially in today’s day and age as my friends and I jokingly like to call it: ‘The Age of the Screenager.’ I am by no means saying that you have to be that person at a concert who takes a million videos on their phone and who doesn’t dance and sing. Please, please, please, if there is anything you take away from this let it be this: never be that person.
Regardless of this idea of photography being a bridge between generations upon generations, capturing moments with your friends on film is fun! It is part of the human experience to reminisce on old times. Even now, barely into my twenties, I am so grateful that I have pictures of my early childhood to look back on.
With a simple push of a button or a snap on your phone, you immortalize the moment you are experiencing. Now when I take a picture of my friends in the dining hall or my college dorm room, I think about how one day my great-granddaughter will uncover a box, seemingly forgotten and unimportant, and feel that familiar feeling I once felt in my heart.
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