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Last updated: Thursday, May 24, 11:59 a.m.
Opinion

Op-Ed: Picture Perfect: Photography positive tool in sharing of past memories, experiences

By Renae Alfdeilat
Posted on Sept. 26, 2010, at 9:56 p.m.

I am writing in response to Ryanne Nason’s column (“Excessive photography obstructs making of real memories,” Sept. 23) on the supposed harmful effects of excessive photography on memory development. As a mother of three and an on-again off-again shutter bug with my own children, I totally and wholeheartedly disagree with Nason.

Ask those who have lost everything in a fire what they miss the most and chances are it won’t be their clothes, their paperwork, their DVD’s and electronics or their furniture. A majority would tell you what they miss the most are their photographs, which captured their cherished memories of their teenage son’s or daughter’s first baby steps, their grown daughter’s high school hair and other such benchmarks of nostalgia.

Photographs remind us of the memories long forgotten and feelings that go along with them. They are dear to most of us and the price we pay, or have paid, to sit still a moment of our precious time to capture a memory on paper (or however you store your photos), is just that — precious.

I don’t know about any of you, but my 34-year-old mind has already forgotten many things from my childhood, such as the friends I have had or the things I did and tried in my early youth. But, thankfully, these happenings can be rediscovered by sitting at my parents’ house flipping through photo albums, specifically there to jog my memory.

Not only do I get to re-experience all I had forgotten over time, but by sharing this act with my family, we all get to enjoy life and we often find ourselves laughing about stories behind the photos — those stories only we know.

The other day even, my children and I were looking through the photos on my computer and came across pictures I took last year at Treworgy Apple Orchard. My youngest, who is three years old, started getting excited and said, “Mumma, Mumma, I remember that!  I remember that! I remember the goats!  Can we go again Mumma?”

My oldest responded in a similar fashion to his younger sibling.

Remember that awesome corn maze?” he asked me upon observing the photographs.

My middle child remembered the delicious ice cream. Due to the photographs and the memories they were able to conjure within each of us, we were able to plan when we would go this year and what we would make with the apples we brought home.

Therefore, with that experience for my defense, I beg to differ with Nason. Without the photos to remind us of the sweet and fleeting family moments we all shared, I could not have created the other beautiful memories between me and my three children. Even when the four of us huddle around my laptop looking at photos and discussing shared memories, we are making a memory of us as a family, as a loving unit.

One day, when you have children of your own, I hope I see you in the apple orchard snapping away. I have no doubt you will, at some point, in your life succumb to the lense, but for now, don’t let your pet peeve begrudge us of our fun and family time. Please don’t accuse us shutterbug parents or students of neglect, when all we want to do is remember.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 26th, 2010, 9:56 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.

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  • http://namelikehismaster.bigcartel.com/ Ryan Page

    I personally find it problematic that we increasingly rely on photographs as some kind of artificial memory. I think it cripples us because we have abstracted our past from the experience of it. We now rely on objects for our memory whereas previously these things were self contained.

    You bring up an example of people upset at losing photos in a fire. As if the memories are somehow destroyed. It seems to me to be much more practical to let your own memory do the work, rather than trying to preserve the past. To do that would be to fight the nature of the world. Things change.

    This doesn’t mean that photography isn’t useful, but that sometimes people put too great a value on it.

    Is it neglectful to constantly photograph your children? Maybe that’s going to far, but I find it somewhat perverse when people go out of their way to have all of these records of them being a good parent. Why not just be a good parent? Do you have to prove it by uploading uploading pictures of them on facebook from the womb to the grave?

    I guess the crux of my argument is that it is better to exist than to document. I can understand your point of view, but our culture is far too attached to nostalgia and documentation for its own good. To quote Marshal Mcluhan “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
    the future.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1457783628 Justin

    This is to Ryan

    “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” Who said that?

    Its not just our culture that goes everywhere with cameras and its not even nearly everyone in our country that does that. Have you ever been outside the United States? I go places in America and there are far fewer Americans taking pictures than Koreans taking pictures in Korea. I went to a corn maze a few weeks ago there were at least fifteen families there but only myself and one other person taking pictures. Ya I agree some people go insane with it and have several hundred pictures of their kids loaded up on F book but do you have kids? A kid of your own not a step-son or step-daughter if not then you have no reason to even speak of what they do because you don’t know the love they have for their kids and unless you have your own don’t even argue that.

    The greatest thing about America is our right to peruse happiness and I really love it how people criticize other peoples avenues of approach to their happiness.