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| Having a GREAT hair day in Dublin! |
After a friend posted gorgeous photographs from her trip to
Alaska, she stated that she was eager to see my photographs of our recent trip
to Dublin. The thing is, there’s only
about a dozen or so, and that includes the photos of a bound pork leg and wax
figures of Bob Geldof and Liam Neesom, pictures that serve no purpose except
for momentary amusement. I’m awful about
taking pictures. I generally don’t like
being in photographs but I’m also bad about recording events with
photography.
It’s not that I don’t want to remember moments or locations,
but at the times when I should be “preserving the moment,” I’m usually so
wrapped up in participating that I forget.
For example, while we visited the Dead Zoo (an excellent name for the
Dublin Natural History museum), there were various scientists posted throughout
the museum offering hands on displays.
One scientist brought giant bugs.
While I wasn’t about to hold the tarantula, I did hold the giant
millipede. Later, it occurred to me that
people usually photograph moments like that.
I’m not sure if it’s to celebrate bravery or just to preserve an
encounter with a rare creature. Of
course, it was too late at that point. Still,
I’m not likely to forget the sensation of a foot long creature’s hundreds of
legs creeping along my hands and arms. But
later, I photographed a shop display of meerkat figurines dressed in various
costumes. They weren’t even taxidermied
meerkats, but they were cute.
Generally, there are three items I deem photo-worthy: architecture, plants, and animals. People rarely make an intentional
appearance. My husband only appears in
one photograph from our trip. I don’t
appear in any. There is, however, a
photograph of a knife and fork burnt into a tabletop at Avoca, something I
thought would be an interesting idea should I decide to re-do our kitchen in
Irish country chic. There’s also a
photograph of the front counter for the same reason. Somewhere, there’s a similar photo of
Balthazar’s counter in New York, also as inspiration should I ever get around
to redoing our kitchen. But there aren’t
any pictures of us on any of our New York visits, although I’m pretty sure I
was there.
Another reason why I don’t take many photographs is that I
don’t know what to do with them afterwards.
I’m not big on hanging personal photographs on the wall. I have some photo albums, but the last time I
organized my photos in an album was for our first trip to Ireland 15 years
ago. Even with digital technology, out of roughly
200 photos, I’ve only bothered to print maybe 10 images and of those, only
perhaps 5 are framed, three of which were from my sister’s wedding.
I do like photographs, per se. I post a photograph almost daily on my private
FaceBook page that I call “Beauty of the Day,” which mostly consists of flowers
and leaves that I encounter while walking my dogs, some of which appear in the
Gallery portion of this blog. I view my photographs
as a form of artistic expression, like painting or music rather than a way to
record a memory. And then there are the
occasional forays into “photo as proof,” as if Photoshop doesn’t exist. But I’ve pretty much given up on photos of a
personal nature. Even photos with
friends. I’m incredibly un-photogenic. Back in the day when one actually had still
photos taken of their wedding, my sister raved about our photographer because
he was able to get at least a few photos with my mouth shut and both of my eyes
open. In group photos, I’ve taken to positioning
myself on the ends so that I’m easily cropped out, thereby preserving the
moment and esthetic appeal for the rest of the group. Thank goodness for video still shots. That’s how I manage the self-portraits taken
for this blog. I film five or ten
minutes of footage, and no joking, I go through it frame by frame to get what
appears “in print” – and sometimes things don’t
appear, which are the entries without portraits.
I think part of the reason why many people take photographs
is to share them with the next generation, to prove to them that indeed we were
young at one point and led a rather interesting life pre-parenthood. It’s one of the things we missed with my
mother. Her family destroyed their
family photos because they feared repercussions during World War II, so I’ve
never seen my mother as a child. The
oldest photo we have of her was taken in her 20s, when she was a model, and she
looked hot. But when she regales tales
of her childhood, I can only imagine what she and the places looked like. My nephews and nieces have grown up seeing
photographs of their parents at all ages and laugh about their fashion choices
and how they’ve lived their lives. But
my husband and I don’t have children so photographic documentation is mostly
for our own amusement and nostalgia, and even so, we never look through old
photo albums together.
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| Meerkats in Dublin - at least they're not as creepy as the tea party kittens in Potter's Museum of Curiosities. |
Still, I’ve one upped an idea from Nicholas Sparks’ sappy
story, The Notebook. I’ve started putting together scrapbooks of pretty
pictures cut out from magazines and postcards.
I figure, if I ever get Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia, my
husband or maybe even my nieces and nephews could just grab one of those
scrapbooks as fits their fancy for the day.
We can flip through the pages together in the convalescent home and they
can tell me about my life as one of King Henry VIII’s wives, or how I lived as
a courtesan in the demimonde of 19th Century Paris. I also have one as a noted member of The
Algonquin Table. How would I know the
difference? It certainly would make for
an intriguing past, and no one would have to worry about getting the story “right,”
not to mention the pictures are lovely.
Why not? Over time our memories of the origins of actual photos fade
anyway, and frankly a picture of the Tower of London, where I awaited my
execution makes much more sense than
a photo of a meerkat figurine display in Dublin shop.
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