Reflection of my Family Album

Interesting to reflect of my own family album. 

Very much like early paintings and photographs my family album has formal family photos taken by commercial photographers; children and grandchildren sitting on Santa; school photos and some home made family shots to sent to extended family and friends at Christmas. The formality and informality of the poses vary as much as those of the subjects. The family snaps – around the house, on vacation, or engaged in organised activities take the form of posed and  natural. I'm reminded of a family photo taken for Christmas where no matter what one of the grandchildren, 4 years old, insisted on frowning. That one photo probably got more response from friends than any other we've sent out. 

The article made me reflect on how the  family photos are stored, organised and mostly disorganised in several different ways. 

Albums – there are a couple of albums of photos based on subject, like the progress of building a new house from empty block through all stages to final completion. Since completion no new photos have been added over the past 16 or so years showing the dramatic changes in the landscape and growth and death of lawns, shrubs and especially trees from tube stock to 15 metre and still growing trees. Albums of wedding and honeymoon, and children. At some point, photos taken as slides overtook printed images and after that phase there was a long period without much happening in the photography field except for the occasional vacations and special occasion shots. 

Prints – Those prints not in albums, the majority, are often still in the envelopes received from the photo lab with the negatives, many, but not all are labelled and dated while others are not. They are all stored in a large cardboard box in our 'box room'. Where are the rest? There are hundreds, maybe a thousand that are loose, higgily-piggily, in that same large cardboard box. This includes prints I processed back in the day when I spent hour upon hour in the dark room. That cardboard box is my 'round-to-it' box. You know, I'll sort them when I get around to it, sometime in my retirement. Hum, I've been retired two and a half years and haven't even got that on my list of projects yet.  

Slides – May slides have diligently been labelled and placed in slide boxes holding about 100 or more in each box, some are in carousels, some in straight slide trays and others still in the boxes received from the photo lab. Good thing about the cardboard mounted slides is they have a month and year on them. On the other hand I went through a phase of having slides processed and them mounting them myself in, what was a current fad at the time, glass mounts which ensure the emulsion didn't get scratched being protected by being sandwiched between two thin pieces of glass within a plastic mount. 

Framed & Hung – Not all photos are hidden away in boxes or albums some are actually on display. Luckily I have a large rumpus room so there are lots of family photos hanging on the walls and on top of bookcases. These are probably the most meaningful of the photos to my family. The photos span up to 4 generations on both my wife and my family. There are progressive school photos of our 7 grandchildren; photos of our children from childhood though to marriage and children of their own; photos of my wife and I from our childhood to current; photos of our parents and some of our grandparents . It is surprising when children and grandchildren visit how often these images stimulate conversations of our past and what we did and who some of these people are and the family resemblances between the generations. 

Digital – I took up digital photography in early 2000 and have totally switched to it. While my Lightroom Catalogue has well over 85,000 photos catalogued only a very small percentage of those fit in the family album category. Digital family photos are more widely shared than earlier print photos. They are either shared online or via CD/DVD. Digital frames are such a great idea. I'm into gadgets so yes I have had a couple of digital frames for several years, but alas they fall in the 'round-to-it' category.