{"id":428,"date":"2023-01-10T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/?p=428"},"modified":"2023-01-10T14:29:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:29:29","slug":"if-i-could-save-time-in-a-photo-the-first-thing-that-id-like-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/2023\/01\/10\/if-i-could-save-time-in-a-photo-the-first-thing-that-id-like-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"If I could save time in a photo, the first thing that I’d like to do…."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
My brother and me, a long time ago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

… with apologies to the late Jim Croce of “Time in a Bottle” fame… I’d save all my photos where they would be kept and shared and become a source of wonder: Did they really squeeze toddlers into clothes that were too tight? Or that had to be rolled up or cinched in? (Yes, they did – if you outgrew them before you wore them out, too bad. And if you were the only girl in a passel of boys, you wore a lot of hand-me-downs from other families and “boy” clothes to pass along to les freres. I was in “dungarees” before the hippies.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What’s that THING behind them?” That, friends, is an apple box. My father cut windows and doors in the cardboard to make a playhouse. I was in charge of the house, of course. Boss girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My photos remind me of the past, of moments that I didn’t save in a photo because it never occurred to me that I’d want to remember. When I was a child living in a northern fishing village, the first noise on a summer morning was the sound of boat motors as the men left harbour to fish. Who takes a picture of a sound? Or of something as commonplace as those boats were to me? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Decades later, at low tide in Burin, in Newfoundland and Labrador, there lay this motor among the seaweed and rocks beside a fishing stage. I remembered the wheel from the fishing boats of my childhood, but the rest of the apparatus I wouldn’t know from a donkey’s ear. The sight brought back the sound with a level of homesickness I never expected to feel about a put-put-put-put fading into the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saving images comes to mind right now because I have been sorting through hundreds of old family photos – maybe thousands. I have not counted. Slides, negatives, prints – all of varying quality and many completely unidentified. I have been scanning them into my computer to create digital copies to share with family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought the equipment years ago and taught myself how to digitally copy images for some of my books that included historic photos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the same time I joined the Pictou Historical Photograph Society (check their Facebook and web pages). I realized then the value of keeping historic photos – like this one of the Maritime Building in New Glasgow, taken not long before its demolition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
SONY DSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Without the photo or similar proof, one would have a hard time persuading people that New Glasgow once had a skyscraper – albeit a rather short one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ordinary photos of familys posed in their gardens or at Christmas dinners give later generations an idea of past traditions, fashions, and customs – reminders of things we never thought we’d forget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By saving these photos as digital copies, I save space in the cubbyholes under my desk, boxes in my closet, and more boxes on my shelves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital files can be fragile, but so can paper and celluloid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This task spends time to save time, or times. Times past. Fact – you can’t photograph the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One more photo, because it’s snowing today – and just for fun: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… with apologies to the late Jim Croce of “Time in a Bottle” fame… I’d save all my photos where they would be kept and shared and become a source of wonder: Did they really squeeze toddlers into clothes that were too tight? Or that had to be rolled up or cinched in? (Yes, they… Continue reading If I could save time in a photo, the first thing that I’d like to do….<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,19,52,51],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-history","tag-monica-graham","tag-photographs","tag-time","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/monicagraham.ca\/\/a-world-of-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}