Eleventh Blog: What I learned about taking photos

What I thought I knew: In my family, photos keep us connected. My mother kept the photos. She put them in scrapbooks that were rectangular, with black pages. The photos were kept on the pages by being inserted into four corner holders. This must have been time consuming and tedious, but I loved looking through the family history. We had an uncle who took family portraits in black and white. I can remember my parents and siblings posing on his couch, me with my head gently leaning aside, trying to look romantic. I have several of his family photos framed at my house, dark, casual and full of meaning and memories.

My mother and father had a 35mm camera with a separate light meter. The light meter was forever being dropped, replaced, misplaced and studied for the magic numbers that must be translated to the camera for a proper light setting. The first prints of our family were in black and white, with white borders and small sizes. By the time I was in grade school, they were taking color slides. My parents took photos of the first day of school (we had new outfits), Christmas (we had new outfits) and Easter Sunday (we had, well, you know.) They took photos of our vacations and the friends with whom we camped and hiked and traveled. They took photos of parties that took place at their home and of church functions. My dad liked to take photos of nature, his most infamous, looking upward from the bottom of various trees.

After vacations, we would have slide shows, setting up the projector, finding a wall space and eventually, fighting with the roll-away screen. My parents accumulated about 20 boxes of slides throughout their lifetime, and I always enjoyed looking through them. My mother printed up many of the slides, compiling a wall of cheaply framed photos for all of us to enjoy. I have some of those framed prints in my hallway, along with the photos of my children that I framed. When I got married in 1979, my husband and I purchased a Pentax K1000 for $100.00 dollars. This camera was fantastic and modern, with a built in mechanical light meter, although the flash was still an attachment and very manual. I still have it, along with a spare (my parents bought the same camera) leftover from my parent's estate and some extra lenses. My husband and I also took slides and I believe I am storing 14 boxes, all in trays and waiting in the darkness of my closet for the projector. Sometime after our children were born, we started taking prints, and now I have almost as many books of photos.

In my family, I have taken most of the photos over the past 30 years or so. One of my intentions was to capture the rich scenery of the Western states. However, photos of people that I know and love are much more interesting. Yes, it's nice to capture the first spring flower, but it's better to capture my children hunting for Easter eggs, or friends and family sitting around a campfire or Thanksgiving dinner. I love to photograph my children without their knowledge. This was possible when they were small, but now that they are in their 20's, they insist on posing and combing their hair and looking away or making faces. A family tradition, started I believe by my sister or aunt, is to give the person next to you rabbit ears with two fingers in a peace sign. It's even better if they don't know it's happening. This pose appears in every family event, a ridiculous but persistent continuity in our lives.

What I have learned: Actually, I'm still learning. I purchased a digital camera last year and read through the booklet that came with it. I'll never use the many whistles and bells that are part of it's program, but I like to be assured that they are part of the camera. I have over 1200 photos from the past year that I have yet to print! I'm behind, and I don't like that. Digital gives you the potential to fiddle with every photo, print only what you like, upload the photos to a photo center anywhere for printing and view them online or on your new flat screen TV. It's almost harder than prints, because I can compose a shot AFTER I record it. I have been instructed to store my photos by 1) actually printing them, 2) storing them on my computer hard drive and 3) storing them on archival CDs. I can send my photo files to friends and family who appear or might be interested in my photos. Sharing digitally is lazy and wonderful, but I still prefer prints. Whenever my oldest daughter visits, she flips through all of the photo books, just like I did when I was young.


One of the benefits of being the photographer for me is that I can hide. If I'm tired, or not feeling like conversing, I just move around and take photos, which I later use for blackmail ......er.... publish on Facebook ......er.... well, I don't even get around to doing that. Even with the Pentax K1000, it was fun to just be the observer and record people and places. My photos can be divided into people, nature and records of events, (a boring category and not necessarily as interesting.) It's exciting to be able to "publish" my favorites online. My digital camera is great at taking close-ups, but my Pentax K1000 was (is!) much better at action shots. I took the Pentax on a rafting trip, using up 10 rolls of film on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in 2000. The Pentax is probably more durable than the digital, but I love that I can take zillions of photos digitally. Of course, I carry an extra battery and memory card. If you are lucky, I carry the cord that plugs into the TV for viewing. Also, I have lots of slides to show you.....