Snapshots - Friday, April 20

Posed portrait shots are great - but generally I'd have to say my favorite shots are snapshots. Those are the shots that record how we live our lives. The lighting isn't generally perfect and there is often "undesirable" clutter in the background but flash forward 10, 20, 30+ years - it surprised me how much fun it can be to see the background clutter, the old furniture... items long forgotten, etc.

Some of my fond memory snapshots:

1. My Dad in 1959 in Nyssa OR. - Several years ago my mom sent me a packet. This (photo above) was one several photos I received. I wasn't born until many years after this photo was taken, but, the shelf in the background was a fixture in our home for many years. Last I knew my sister had it in her home. It was fun to see the shelf and the encyclopedia's that we constantly thumbed though sitting on the top shelf. I think at one point my sister and I used that shelf as "mansion" for our Barbies.

2. Christmas Day in Portland - Not the best photo composition but there is sooo much going on in this snapshot. It's a serious memory treasure for journal prompts.

1. My brothers are playing a hockey game my parents purchased as a family gift for Christmas. We had a lot of fun with that over the years.
2. I am wearing a dress that I absolutely loved and wouldn't give up - problem is, by the time I am wearing it here - it is so short I am wearing it as a shirt and the long sleeves are now half sleeves.
3. In the background you can see so many things like the curtains my mom made - check out the little poof balls as trim!
4. and the big red boot on the shelf - we used those instead of stockings. (The big gallon can was Mom & Dad's - the kids were soup can sized.)
5. The thing hanging from the ceiling - an example of macrame plant holder - popular in the 70's. and
6. The little girl in the background is my niece, Debbi, and
7. behind her is a great big picture window - so many memories about that window!

3. A photo of myself on my oldest brother's porch. I can't say I remember that plaid coat - but if you look down at my feet, I totally remember those shoes! I remember going shopping with my mom and my sister to buy the shoes. Clogs were in fashion that year and I wanted to buy white clogs. My mom tried to talk me into a nice pair of leather clogs. But, I wanted nothing to do with them. I had picked out a pair of shiny white clogs. It wasn't long at all before the toes were scuffed and the shiny white surface began peeling off of my shoes. Lesson learned - listen to your mother!

4. Lexi's pink paint. In a more recent example - I am so glad I took photos of Alexis in her bedroom. She picked out the pink paint on her walls. It was so bright that I decided to tone down the top half with a white wash technique. She said it made her walls look like pink clouds - she loved it. Shortly after these photos were taken the walls were painted to a pale sage green - to make a nursery for her new baby brother. (She was not happy about that.)

 

What kind of journal or page prompts have you stirred up from looking at old snapshots? Add your list to our Life.in.Lists. comments to be entered in our weekly drawing.

Comments

[A Facebook User]

I was just looking through older pictures last night as I needed to find some pictures of my daughter for the senior banquet slide show. In my search, I also found some older pictures from when I was younger, and they brought back so many memories!
*memories of when my daughter used to love to entertain me by singing and dancing for me
*memories of her friends in her elementary classrooms
*memories of family members who have passed on and what they mean to me.

Honestly, there were also some pictures that brought back unpleasant memories. While they hurt to think about, those moments have shaped who I am.

I feel all types of these memories are worthy of scrapbooking. Someday someone might wonder how I used to think.

[Amy Paegel]

I have a favorite snapshot of my father and my sister sitting at the kitchen table (where we always ate) in our old house -- the house I grew up in, sold in 1996. My father still has the kitchen table, and the wall clock that's in the background. My sister's hair is long and straight -- a la 1960s/70s -- and my father's hair is longish, with his 1970s moustache (no gray yet). Behind them is wallpaper, which makes me think of how they were "before their time" in so many ways... the wallpaper is on one wall only -- an accent wall long before anyone else had such things in their homes.

[Amy Jo Maruschak]

There is a picture of my and my grandfather fishing. Grandpa is holding a fish waaaaay out in frornt of him (because it looks bigger that way!) and I am looking over his shoulder. The river we'd been fishing in is in the background. It's one of my alltime favorite pictures!