This generation should not grow old thinking, I wish I would’ve taken more pictures or videos? Possibly, because almost everyone these days has access to a phones camera and always seems to be using it.
Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
Let’s face it; Television has rewired all our brains. An old man once told me. Television and a poisonous snake are one in the same. Both affect the mind of a baby, small child or adults in the same way. The child can’t stop watching, or at the very least, they have to keep an eye on it.
Perhaps, now while enjoying your Covid lockdown or slowdown can be a great time to stop, enjoy all those old pictures you took years ago.
Find the first print, the first polaroid, the first digitized photo, first album or even your first video.
And don’t forget your first underwater shot. And now if you own a drone, your first air photograph.
A special memory – burial at sea, cremated remains
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”
– Joan Miro
Let’s say you are looking at a picture of your family in front of your childhood home. Similar effect that my siblings and I share with this special moment. And now that our mother has since passed away the image above will continue to mean more over time.
“Photographic memory is a term used to describe a person who seems able to recall visual information in great detail.”
The frozen photo above in time is my photographic memory. I can recall that exact memory, time, place. Sort of a bond between man and boat.
A friend on Facebook recently stated that he questioned why – why is everyone on a motorcycle feeling the need to video, photograph or write a story or book about their motorcycle riding experiences?
I can visualize me into the future, my Motorcycle riding muscle or brain photographic memories have long ago faded; grandchild Elliott, Aubrey, Max or Violet will pull out a long forgotten album, digitized photograph or even read or watch a video from long ago and say. Wow Papa!
You Lived that life!
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
— Ansel Adams
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange
The more we look at an image, the more we understand the details and reality of that image. The more time spent looking at a photograph, the better we perceive that photograph. Pictures have a power to make us understand a moment better than we ever could have with our very own eyes.
The picture above. I recall John and I arriving in the wee hours of the night at this Ensenada boat yard. Today we were launching her. John talked his way into the boat yard by bribing the guard allowing us access to his boat. Not wanting to leave Bodie in the truck he told her to get up there! I laughed. Dogs don’t climb ladders. At least not this one. She did! I was amazed. Now he expected Bodie to climb back down. I bet him breakfast she couldn’t do it. He threatened her. She did it.
My memories go back even further. Before the picture, while on the boat, finding all the freezer food thawed out on account that the boat yard failed to keep the boat plugged in.
Thousands of dollars worth of ruined Steaks, lobster, shrimp, fish, all now needed to be thrown away.
And if you now think that only dogs can climb ladders- think rats!
I don’t trust words. I trust pictures.”
– Gilles Peress
Photo above- Hoisting the Old Guys Rule Flag and taking my first selfy!
Change is inevitable in all things, and a photograph allows us to reflect or even remember what life was like before that very change.
As people grow up, grow old, get in fights, fall in love, photographs capture the moments across one’s life, and allow us to remember a moment when all was a certain way.
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