significance of family albums

[jtk]

Family albums can be powerful. What should we do with them? Some just burn them.

 

One side of my family obsessed on photography for over a century, producing a

huge collection (a massive brass Voigtlander & Sohn lens, used professionally by

my great-grand-uncle during California's gold rush, sits at arm's length).

 

cc 1970, for $7, I purchased a box of hundreds of fine family photos ...from

Gypsies. Late 1800s to 1939. Affluent people, they fled the Revolution to

Harbin, China, a Jewish refuge created by Tsar Nicholas. The people lived

comfortably for a while, had parties. The Japanese invaded. At least one of

these Russians escaped, becoming a nurse in San Francisco. Sadly, I won't find

this family. I own their story, and only because I read a little Russian and

German, understand images, know a little history, and wanted the photos more

than the Tsiganes at a flea market.

 

I began studying these two collections and deciphering some of the stories a few

years ago, following my purchase of a scanner.

 

I thoughtfully (but brutally) edited, archivally printed and bound multiple sets

of my own family's images, distributing them with minimal notes among the next

generation.

 

What do you do with yours?

[sher811]

I have been making scrapbooks for my children for 15 years now.

 

I hope when they grow up that they / and future generations will appreciate all the effort that went into preserving their memories.

 

I am dilligent about both taking good pictures, recording their lives...not just highlights...but every day moments.

 

Another thing on my mind in this digital age...is the loss of personal handwriting. How meaningful is it to you to locate an old recipe or card written by your grandmother?

 

I encourage all my family members to add to my albums by writing things in their own handwriting :)

[saskphotog]

One Christmas a few years ago, my mother-in-law put together a slide show of family snapshots that covered over 47 years of her constant harrassment with her camera to pose. The whole family was there, and it changed the way I look at family snapshot photography.

 

In spite of faded, out of focus, over exposed, badly composed, strange compositions, and just poor quality images, we were all enthralled. It was an hour of, "Remember that car?", "Look at how small those trees were!", "Grandpa had hair!", "I loved that old sweater!", "Whatever happened to him anyway?" and so on and so on.

 

Everyone had a great time and we all relived places, events, people, joys, trajedies, love affairs, loss and recovery. It was just great.

 

She had kept stuff that had almost no meaning at the time, but 40 years had given it all tremendous value. I now take lots more pictures of family events, and I throw away far fewer.

[don_e]

My wife and I went to the opening of Dream Street at the Carnegie in Pittsburgh. Being a native, I noticed nothing unusual, but my wife pointed out that the spectators were mostly families, grandparents, babies in strollers and in arm. Small groups lingered before each photo pointing and chatting. She said, "You're all looking at the family albums, aren't you?" (she also thinks Pittsburghers are really Hobbits).

 

I've read Smith considered Pittsburgh his best work, but he always had problems with layout and format. It might amuse his restless, dissatisfied, perfectionist spirit to find out it was the family album , all along.

[nicolerenee]

"A good man leaves an inheritance to his childrens children" prov 13:22

 

Many people think that an inheritance is monetary, and is in many cases, but that isnt the kind of inheritance I'm interested in leaving my children and grandchildren. I want to leave an inheritance of legacy, of roots, of character and what it means to be a member of this family. Photographs can do this in a powerfull way as you see the love of parents for their children in a family snapshot, the character in your grandfathers face ingrained by years of living and loving and enduring, the strength of your grandmother as she works over a washtub with little ones tugging on her apron strings during the depression, the joy in your aunts eyes as she holds your newborn cousin, the magic of your first step...the list goes on. Family albums are an inheritance of legacy and thats what I intend to give to my childern.

[grain]

...of guilt come whenever I am in a thrift or antique shop and see boxes of 'carte de visite'

style portraits of 'Mother' or 'Uncle Ed'. Standing. Group photographs of someone's

heritage now being pawned off. But there's no helping it I suppose. The family line that

belonged to these photographs may be lost, married out, or even God forbid, extinct.

In my own family there are few photographs of the generations which came before. A fire

in Somerville Ma. in the late seventies took care of that. I'm driving to Nova Scotia

tomorrow with my Father, who last night insisted that he be in a snapshot of every place

we stop to visit- making up for lost photo's.

I once garnered a Welta at an estate sale, which had a roll of Verichrome pan in it,

exposed. I developed it and spent some time tracking down the eldest son of the late

owner, who was astonished and happy to see that summer day in the sixties in Vermont.

So readers, think on who's heritage it is we hold in hand at the local flea market, and

before claiming it our own, give a thought to the 'what if they're still out there'.<div></div>

[benjamin_hubert]

Yes right now I am putting together a pictoral history book of one of the local lakes around here. Yes I agree fully it is important to let the people that come after you to know who you are and what you needed to do to servive in our place and time.So much can be lost if we do not record both in words and immages of life and our time.

[jtk]

...scattering and fading heritage ...photos just a start...editing...saving and connecting one's family stories with narrative...flatbed scanning...fine ink jet printing..safe archival portfolios (for me, the simplest Itoya)... distribution of sets...

 

My sets include scan of a 1902 letter of recommendation for my grandfather, written in beautiful hand..."Any one requiring his services will be satisfied with him in every particular." I attached a note: Fred, a teen-age electrician in San Francisco, hated his 1902 employer :-) There's also a group photo of his fellows at that company, who included a black man and two women...

 

Arthur's "twinges" prove humanity and nourish it...I know a young stockbroker, ignorant of family before his divorced parents' generation....

[nicolerenee]

Alexander that was a noble thing to do and I agree with the seintiment completely. Someone bought a book for me at an estate sale that has some family notes inside it and my fingers tingle every time I pick it up knowing that that was a part of someones life long before my mother was ever born.

[tommyyearginjr]

One evening, my wife and I were watching this certain home improvement show on a certain cable network dedicated to home improvement. The plot of the show is this: the family will find things in their upstairs storage (antiques, old clothing, etc.) and have them appraised and aucioned off, in order to pay for home renovations in the family's home.

 

The family in this particular episode was willing to let go of a lot of stuff - old furniture, sports memorabilia, and then, they decided to put something on the auction block that I thought was unconscionable - photos of long-since departed family members, all the way back from what appeared to be Civil War-era to the turn of the twentieth century. The appraiser promised there would be people willing to pay for vintage photos - even though they had no idea who they were.

 

As was expected, the family stood by and had their family photos auctioned off...I forgot how much they got, but I do remember the cheers and looks of excitement as they were now going to reap the rewards of selling off images of their ancestors.

 

I simply shook my head, turned to my wife, and said to her, "I hope our descendants will be kinder to us than these people were to their forefathers."

 

I'll never forget what her answer was: "Don't worry, they will."

[marciotk]

I just happened to find couple of dozens of 40-year old prints in a drawer of some old furniture of my family, faded, rotten, wrinkled, little. But wow! there I find myself as a baby, my father younger than I am today, relatives' images that seem to be sleeping in a time capsule. Certainly of little or no value to anyone outside of our family. But a great treasure for those who lived the moments captured by someone's camera. Maybe photos are the things that have the most pronunciated value - no value gap.

[sitemistic]

Surviving photos or not, in a couple of generations, the family will neither remember or

care who we are. That's as it should be, I think. My grandmother took 100's of photos of

her extended family which I have looked at. She and my parents are dead along with the

identities and family relationships of all of these people staring out of the photos.

<p>I've thought about this a lot, actually, and have concluded that discarded family

photos at flea markets represent more the norm than the exception. My grandmother

could tell you every detailed relationship and connection between the pictures going back

70 or 80 years. All of it died with her. I have neither the time nor inclination to remember

all that stuff about dead people.

[don_e]

"I have neither the time nor inclination to remember all that stuff about dead people."

 

Jim, I never knew my paternal grandfather. He died decades before I was born. The one known photo of him hangs on the dining room wall, carefully restored. I look just like him (or did at that age).

 

There is a professional dancer in Brazil with one of my family names. He must be a very close relative, looking as he does like my uncle and his sons.

 

Watching a tv program one night, my wife and I watched a scientist from Scotland explain chemical reactions in a volcano. He had one of my wife's family names. He was nearly a mirror image of her father.

 

The world and our lives are more tightly coiled together than we might think.

[jtk]

Old photos at flea markets may be the "norm," but some of us don't live by norms.

 

For example, I watch little TV, have little interest in professional sports, normative activities: because I'm greedy I do make more intense use of the time. It makes my life richer. Time not wasted gives my photography has a chance to prosper, and reading, and appreciation of others.

 

One of the highest capabilities of our species is story-telling: song and creative writing and travel narrative and...hang on to your hats...photography and albums.

 

Don's observations about coincident relationships is crucial. My paternal Great Grandfather looks just like me, staring down from a beautiful, well frame 4X5 from 1890 or so. Tales about him, relayed to me by his long dead son, echo traits I am surprised to find in myself. I have photos of his shop in the 1890s...looks like something I'd be proud of...it's nice to remember owning that shop...

 

I labored to produce archival albums and I've distributed them across my family, to improve survival (and interest) odds. As importantly, I enclosed family lore about many of the people. Information like that has ALWAYS been passed down the generations by humanity, one way or another. See the Bible's "begats." (bob begat betty, betty begat benny, benny begat boszo etc).

 

People want identity, mostly from relations: family, clan, tribe, or just working peers. When someone wants to know who you are, just to get to know you, do you say "I am the animal that you see, I don't know my roots and I don't know where my social characteristics came from?"

 

Inability to tell one's story makes one dull at best, threatening at worst.

[m_j25]

I cherish mine. And look at them ever now and then. Its just a nice reminder where you came from.

[yankfan]

After my father died in 1987 and my mother moved to an apartment, she entrusted me with all the family photos still in existance. There, I saw my father, young, happy, and handsome in his Navy uniform...him and mom on their honeymoon, pictures of my brother and I growing up in the 50's, my grandmothers, my uncle, my cousin. Family members long since passed. Included were pictures of him with his grandchildren, who barely remember him except thru those family keepsakes. I am keeper of my father's legacy. Someday, my children will be the keepers of mine. We just had our first granddaughter, and hopefully we'll live long enough for her to know us, but if that doesn't happen, she'll have those pictures of us holding her. Someday she'll see me, young, happy, proud in MY Navy uniform, her grandmother and I on OUR honeymoon, and enjoying her, as her daddy's grandpa enjoyed him. There is no price on that.

[doug_foster]

Above, Don E wrote about our ".....our lives being more tightly coiled together...."

 

By coincidence, I recently came across an excerpt from a poem by the great poet T. S. Eliot:

 

"We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them."

 

I believe this neatly sums up the interelationship of the living and the dead.

[jtk]

Doug, great comment. To that I'd add the crucial fact of DNA Double Helix and this provocative link :

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060315_dna_nebula.html

[snakecharmer]

Sadly, I find that "mass production" of photos is resulting in the death of the family album. I suspect that this slow death actually began in the 1980s with the advent of cheap-o point-and-shoots. It is continuing these days with digitalization of photography, where the vast majority of family photos end up hidden away on hard drives and never see print. Also, it is trendy these days to hide from the camera, declaring "Don't take my photo today, I look horrible!" And, indeed, it is trendy to look, well, horrible. Old photos of my grandmother show her looking perpetually polished and classy at family gatherings. My mother? Elegantly dressed as a child, but by her teenage years she had chosen jeans and tee shirts. My sister and I were children of the 1980s and sported the typical logos and sloppy tourist tees of that decade. So many photos, so few that we are proud to be in or willing to share with future generations.

I think that the death of the family album began with the 1980s idea that more is more, for this was the age of double and triple prints. This oversaturation overwhelmed the typical mother who was putting together the family album, so the task was abandoned and the photos were thrown into a shoebox or ten. Today's family is relieved that they don't have to deal with all those photos lying around, so they store their memories in pixels instead. No one has time to assemble albums.

Except my polished, classy grandma. Bless her heart, she collects photos of everyone in the family regardless of how unclassy and reluctant we look in them. She still uses film and still prints everything, just one set of prints, mind you. She has even gone behind our backs and ordered school and graduation photos that we otherwise would have done without.

Now that I am leaving the nest, I hope that my own set of family albums will extend beyond a wedding album and maybe a baby book.

[todd_wemmer1]

Hello, everyone. I just joined this photo.net. Will be posting some photos too. But I'm also working on a dissertation (not nearly as enjoyable as taking photos!) about lost and found personal photographs. I just read this forum post. This is almost exactly what my dissertation is about. My project involves getting people to call or email in their story (stories) about lost and found personal photos. You all have some great stories. Please check out my website: www.lostandfoundphotos.org. I need all the stories I can get. You can hear some audio examples of stories of lost and found on my site too. I just started inviting people a week ago. I've received some emails and a few calls. I'd love get more. Please consider participating. I need to finish this dissertation so I can start taking more photos.

 

Would love to hear from you all. (todd@lostandfoundphotos.org)

[jtk]

Todd's project sounds interesting. I'll participate.

 

Jenny's ruminations on this topic seem especially important, as she's "about to leave the nest" and therefore may be telling us something about a historic process.

 

What if, several generations from now, a grown child has no idea what her lineage looked like, what they did, where they came from?

 

I may have mentioned before: I know a newly-minted 22 year old (!) stockbroker in the Midwest. He's a wonderful young man, I admire his dedication and intelligence. But he seems to me to be tragic: He dislikes one of his parents, has no idea what they did before moving to his town when he was a child, knows NOTHING of his grandparents, doesn't know how his ancestors came to be Americans. Doesn't even think his ignorance is cause for concern. Amazing.

 

I know some Navajo people. When they meet, before anything else, they learn each other's ancestry (clan memberships especially). That's near the heart of being tribal. That's not in the nature of modern man.

 

Are we living in the last years of of ancestral lineage?

[tsmorehouse]

AS someone who became interested in researching my genealogy a few years ago, the family album took on new importance to me. For those of you not interested in them or not caring to look at pictures of a bunch of dead people, it may not end with you. You may have a child or grandchild or later decendant that will want to know about these people.

 

I am fortunate in that my grandfather was a part time photographer and had thousands of photos. I also found some relatives that were able to provide me with hundreds of old photos. They can tell a great deal about the lives your ancestors led. Their work, homes, travels, likes, and even some personalities. They can tell you about military service, social life, religious celebrations and observances, affluence or lack therof, their place and time in history.

 

these albums can be great treasures to someone who wants to know about their ancestors. Most of us will have grave stones over us when we die. We want someone in the future to know we were here. The albums are another way to tell our story.