My birthday, Magaw Place, Washington Heights July 24, 1989
[from FB posts: August 16, 2012]
I just went through a marathon review of all my photos.... amazing that there are huge photographic holes in my life! I am somewhat well documented as a kid and then from teen years till I graduated from university... slim to none! A bit disappointing.... I wonder if anyone else has similar experiences? At least after Georgetown, I have have LOTS of photos. (of course, I went to Japan... you can't NOT be photographed there!!! so from then on, I got LOTS)
In preparation for the exit from Milford, I wanted to scan and save as many photos as possible. The whole process took me months, but I did it. As I noted in the above post, there are just some parts of my life that are photographic black holes. However, in comparison to some people, my life is extremely well-documented. My parents probably only had a handful of photos of themselves before their marriage and then my grandparents might have only had 2-3 photos of their entire lives. Compare that to people today growing up in the digital age who will have every moment memorialized, like it or not.
Feeling wistful, I will say that I wish had more photos of the following:
Before I could drive, we spent a great deal of time with uncles, aunts, and cousins. I have a very sparse photographic record from those days. That is a shame because those are some of my best childhood memories.
I actually got into photography in high school, so I have a surprising amount of photos from those days. Not hundreds, but some from a few basketball games where I took photos of friends. It is one bright spot.
The Georgetown years, some of the best of my life, remain incredibly poorly documented. How very sad, but my mind was focused on so much more than photography.
I went off to Japan where I was photographed to the point where I thought I might never want to appear in a photo again! I may have well thrown away most of those photos (hard copies) such was my overwhelming disgust of being photographed to death.
After my return to the USA, the Magaw Place [see: Magaw Place] years in Washington Heights are also some of my fondest memories (see photo above), but they were not memorialized in photos (even though the trips we took during those years WERE photographed).
After the lean start in New York City, my life photographic record suddenly increased by leaps and bounds and only increased as time moved on.
This exercise in reflection (blogging) makes me feel some twinges of regret for NOT photographing the everyday in places I loved or the times of my life that I was very happy. Maybe in moments of happiness taking photos is the least of our concerns? That is ok, too. I am not sure happiness can be captured photographically anyway.
Finally, I consider the countries where I have lived with people who literally possess no photographic records of anything. In fact, in Indonesia, some of my friends like LK only have the photos (hard copy) that I took and shared with him when I lived there. His now adult kids have told me that they are so happy I took photos or they would have had nothing from their childhood. My friends from Onagawa, Japan also lost most of their photos in the great tsunami. MS, told me my photos of time spent there are some of the few remaining in his family's possession[see: harbor wave].
I look at photos now to jog my memory of travels. Sometimes I will dig up a photo and think "was I there? I have no recollection". Other times, I want desperately to write about a strong memory only to realize no matching photo exists. Thus, my blog journey is ongoing - scouring memory to write about things I have photos of and also trying to find photos (sometimes not even my own) of places or things that represent important times or events in my life.