“Time it was, and what a time it was, it was. A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you”
So I have mentioned, I think, that I have my twentieth high school reunion coming up next weekend. In a short seven days I will be reunited from many members of my class from Oldfields School. Since we’re highly educated smart women, we have a facebook group with a whopping 21 of our original forty some odd class members. And as such we have some new pictures being posted daily. This will be our fifth big reunion year returning to Oldfields and I am interested in seeing how much we have evolved over the time.
As part of this event, my classmates and I have gotten to spend some quality time with our scanners. I sat down yesterday with my laptop and big boxes of pictures from my life and started scanning away the physical reminders of my memories that I have. Some pictures I pulled out easily made the cut, “Oh my God…yeah I gotta scan this.” Others, “Well no I still like this person and I believe they’ll kick my butt if I post this.” This went on and on until it was one o’clock in the morning and the dogs reminded me to go to bed. In point of fact they got up, looked at me and left. As Crow licked my hand and walked up the stairs I knew I was being told, “Go to bed mom.”
So today has been a wild and sometimes wooly trip through my past. Not all of the pictures I scanned were from the Oldfields years. It was very satisfying to sort through the diverse images, 10, 15, 20 years old and see faces in them who are people in my Facebook friends. And as such I of course decided that they too should be scanned and given a quick blast from the past. I’m generous like that, especially if 70’s and 80’s fashion was involved!! In the past 24 hours alone I have received 85 various notifications, comments, new friends and such all relating back to the posting of 50 new photos.
The experience has been quite thrilling, humbling and amusing beyond my initial comprehension. I simply looked at the boxes of photos as being possessions that remind me of things, people, places, horses, and experiences I have had. I don’t think I ever comprehended that each one of the pictures in and of itself could hold a deeper meaning for the people with me when I shot it, in the picture as the subject or simply from a place that means more to other people. Take for example this picture:
It’s from 1996 the Fair Hill International CCI*** Three day event. The woman riding is my friend, Michele Trufant on her horse “Desi.” I barely knew Michele then. She trained with the same coach as me, and as such when she was coming around to where I was I snapped off a few pictures. Now here’s the kicker, when it comes to photography I am a hit and miss person. On this particular day, I missed with 98 pictures out of 108. Believe me I went through the three film folders from 36 exposure rolls. They’re mostly all crap. I had the wrong speed film, low light and worst of all, low camera knowledge for technical elements. But in this pile of lackluster stuff was this image. This image alone has gotten a lot of Michele’s friends talking. Her huge smile I think sums it up. She loved that horse so much, I grew to know this as Michele and I ended up working together for a while there after. Her comments when she finally found the picture online, I guess some friends called her, made me smile:
“It took me awhile to figure out what picture you all had seen and it made me cry when i finally found it....i loved that pony and love you all for sending comments!... emily, thank you again. i just figured out how to print it out. you are so sweet to have sent it.”
It never even occured to me that she'd like the image. But I was glad, and to have brought a little smile and memories of a great run into her day, pleased me. I have tried to include images from all different parts of my life, and sadly most of the Oldfields stuff is at my fathers house and I will be journeying there tomorrow to see Dad, and pick up my additional photos, so the scanner will be working overtime again soon. I really am glad that I have been interested enough in photography to want to have a camera ever present in my life. I have such silly, but fun images to look at through the years. I am amazed by my variety of shots, and think its time to show off a couple:
(These are of course for the most part tongue-in-cheek)
As I keep thumbing through the stacks and stacks of "Kodak Moments" I just keep wondering if I would remember my journey as fondly and as vividly if I didn't have all these pictures here to remind me? Would I be any different if I didn't have 300 pictures of Toto, and all my personal horses? The answer is going to have to sit, unknown with many other irrevelant queries. This week I have already taken pictures of my spring flowers blooming, and shots of the puppy. This weekend I hope to catch a few of the timber racing, and some more of my dad. My poor cell phone is bogged down with 600+ pictures and 30 videos. And I guess my point is simple, life is a journey that I document often with a camera.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little stroll through my life with Kodak, Nikon, Minolta, Yashica, and many others. Remember what Paul and Art said,
“Preserve your memories, they're all that’s left you.”
~Emily
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