“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”
It’s dreary today and will be again tomorrow. Rain is expected after that. The day is quiet; no one is stirring. Sundays are like that here.
When I drive home after breakfast, I always take the back road through the historical district. I like the old houses anytime but especially this time of year when many are decorated for fall and Halloween. Pumpkins sit on the doorsteps among the mums and the tall nearly dried wheat stalks. One house has its front yard decorated as a graveyard filled with skeletons. I made a mental note (which I’ll probably forget) to go back there with my camera to take a few pictures.
I have no pictures of me at Halloween. Christmas was the holiday my parents seemed to archive the most though I do recognize an Easter picture from when I was around twelve or thirteen. That Easter dress was a favorite of mine. It had the look of one from the roaring twenties with its low waist. To complement my outfit, I wore tiny squat heels and nylon stockings held up by garters. You can’t see either of them, the shoes or the garters, but I remember the whole outfit well. That picture was taken in the front of the house. It’s funny, as in strange, but just about every outside posed shot my parents took was taken at that very same spot. In a Christmas picture, I’m standing there holding the handle bars of my new bike. In another shot, the dog and I are posed together by the front bushes. My siblings too are usually posed by that front door and the bushes by the garden. I don’t remember any pictures taken in the backyard.
The early pictures are mostly black and white. The first color pictures date from my confirmation when I was eleven. My mother is wearing a broad brimmed pink hat and a fox stole my aunt gave her. I was always intrigued by that stole. The fox still had its head.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
October 24, 2010 at 1:28 pm
When my father passed away I inherited the family photo album. The old B&W and early color photos from the 1040s through the 1950s were beginning to fade. I scanned them into my hard drive and then burned the files to a DVD for posterity. Even photoshop could not return them to their original condition.
They begin to fade with age along with my memories of the events. I can’t do anything about my memory but I saved the photos for my kids to show their grandchildren.
October 24, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Bob,
My mother gave us each, my two sisters, my brother and I, an album with our own pictures and some of all of us. She did this a year or two before she died. Like you, I don’t remember every moment, but I do remember several of them. I’m wiring on the back what they are so the nest generation and on and on will have more information about those long gone relatives.
October 24, 2010 at 2:02 pm
I don´t have especially many photos of myself, we never took many photos as I remember. But I have always liked to stand behind the camera better than in front of it 🙂
I have one Christmas photo of myself sitting in Santa´s knee with my best friend. It was the only way they could get me that close to Santa, that and a lot of gingerbreads 🙂 Personally I think Santa is the best horror figure one can find 🙂 🙂 🙂
Rain, rain and then some more rain here today. But it helped to make this a day of relaxing and film watching 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
October 24, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Christer,
I really enjoy taking pictures too, but I do love the ones from our childhood. They freeze a moment in time and can recollect it for me. That’s pretty neat.
My brother cried and wouldn’t sit on Santa’s lap, but I was far braver and told Santa what I wanted.
Ugly all day today.
October 24, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I just can’t imagine what the draw was for those fox stoles but every old lady in Virginia where I grew up had one. My Mother didn’t, thank God! I thought they looked goofy and a little pagan like and the women wearing them always said it kept her warm. I bet. It was all show for the money. The women wearing them had wealth and wanted everyone to know it. That, I’m sure, is the source of the fox stoles.
October 24, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Z&Me,
I can’t imagine either but as a kid, the fox fascinated me. My mother could never have afforded one if my aunt hadn’t given it to her. I think she traded up. so to speak and got a mink wrap.
October 24, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Cheers
October 24, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Wow, Minicapt,
It sounds amazing with the mandolins.