My dad used to take a lot of pictures of me, especially as a baby (an instinct I totally understand now as a parent myself). The older I got, the fewer photographs were taken, but one thing remained constant – very, very few photographs of me were WITH my parents, and NEVER with both of them at the same time.
I don’t remember much of my childhood at all, and all I have to remember it are these black and white photographs that show our flat, me visiting with the grandparents (oddly, there are more photographs of us with the grandparents who lived away, than there are with the grandparents that we lived in the same flat with… and writing this I’ve just realised I actually don’t have a SINGLE photograph of me with my mum’s dad – how sad is THAT?).
The most precious photographs for me now as a nearly 40-year old adult with a family of my own, are not the glossy colour photos that were taken on special occasions or at school and nursery. The most precious ones are these ones, black and white, imperfect, but showing the real life of me with my parents.
They show me the things that had changed and the things that hadn’t.
They show me what my childhood was like.
And most importantly, they show me I was loved.
These photographs are the reason I do what I do for my clients – document their life, even the mundane moments, because I know how important they are going to become in 10, 20, 40 year’s time.
I wish I had MORE of these photos so I could remember MORE, and tell my son MORE.
I wish I had MORE of the photos with all three of us in them, spending time together, playing, doing everyday things.
I wish I had MORE photos with my dad – he was always the one behind the camera.
I wish I had MORE photos with my grandparents – again, just doing everyday, mundane things.
Do you feel the same? Then we totally need to talk.
