That's me and my first camera with siblings and friends.

My Dad was an amateur photographer. When he died in 2004, I inherited his boxes of slides. My Mom died in 2017. Same thing. I’ve got her pictures now, too, as she was an amateur photographer as well. Between the two of them and the volumes of slides and prints (neither of them ever adapted to digital photography technology) the number of pictures through which to sort is staggering, and I hope leads to a few treasures. Although I’ve been slowly going through them, culling and organizing, there are still thousands of images to review. I know I have my work cut out for me.

But this is not a story about my parents or their photography skills. Rather, I’ve become fascinated with snapshots and how valuable they are. 

An unremarkable snapshot taken at my Mom's cabin near Boone, North Carolina around 2015. The image nonetheless holds cherished memories for me: that rocking chair, the view, the sunlight, and the reminder that those days will never return.

Wiki defines a snapshot as “a photograph that is ‘shot’ spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent and usually made with a relatively cheap and compact camera.” It’s a definition that narrows the value and scope of the “snapshot.” Because, as I’ve gone through my parents’ photographs, I’m fascinated by the story they tell: pictures of their parents and siblings, themselves as youngsters and then as kids falling in love with each other. 

Mom with Jim around 2010 when they both found love later in life.

The intent may not have been to create art, but those images are artistic, nonetheless. The memories preserved tell a story of my family, prompting questions of who they were in those days, and who they became. The first of my parents’ images date from the early 1950s, a time that coincided with the first widely available cameras specifically marketed for mass consumption. I’m fascinated by the images of those two people (and their friends) in the days when they were falling in love and getting married. That’s the Mom and Dad I’ll never know, the young and carefree lovers, before careers and kids occupied them. If art prompts mystery and discovery, then the snapshot creates that space of wonder.

Mom and Dad in the early 1950s, Columbia, Missouri.

Those snapshots are like a unique archeological record of my family; a record replicated millions of times over in other families. But if the advent of portable, then point and shoot, cameras made documenting those family histories possible, the cell phone with its powerful camera capabilities has expanded that capability in countless ways. The cell phone, its technology able to adjust aperture, exposure, white balance, shutter speed, etc. (knowledge previously known only to the “photographer”), has allowed virtually anyone to be a photographer. This “democratization” of photography has taken making images out of the hands of so-called experts and made it widely accessible (as anybody who’s at all familiar with social media can attest). The widespread ability to make photos (and videos, as well) has profound implications beyond just our family connections.

More later…

Iphone snapshot of our doggos, Roscoe and Quintana.

The requisite selfie: Joscelyn and me on the slopes of Kulshan (Mt. Baker) in 2022.