On the joy of paper photographs

I miss photo albums. I miss those envelopes with the photos in front and the negatives in back. Sigh.

No, I don’t want to go back to where paper was the only option.  I like deleting with a single key stroke those pictures that make me look fat. I like holding a thousand memories on a single page I can scroll through. I’m talking about a nostalgic feeling for a time when “scroll” meant something about Egyptians.

Years ago I decided that photo albums were for suckers (so overpriced) and started putting pictures in shoebox-like “photo-boxes”, where they subsequently languished.  After my recent move, I vowed to go through my photo boxes and at least make them easier to peruse and enjoy. (That is code for: get them out of the damn envelopes, line them up in those boxes in such a way that they can be flipped through, and put the negatives into storage. Honestly, if I haven’t searched for a negative in 25 years, will I ever?) This process has unearthed some lovely gems, but also a few mysteries.

For example, behold a charming scene featuring myself and my adorable siblings. And on the left side of the photo (all on one piece of card stock)… Mrs. Rohrbach? Our terrifying school principal?  NOOO!  Why??

Let us move beyond this disturbing apparition to a picture that warms my heart. This is my mother (right) with her niece and best friend, circa 1931. My mother lived with her sister’s family for several years during the Depression. This resulted in her not starving to death.

Never fear. When a photograph begins to pull you down, there is sure to be another that lifts you up. No names. You know who you are:

 

Ok. Next. Now, who are these people?  My photo boxes are filled with mystery guests like this. Note to the wise: label the backs of your photos; I know you think your children will remember these people but trust me, we don’t.

The other thing that fills my photo boxes are these childhood shots that are unbearably sweet.  Before the heartaches, bereavements, and wounds that balance out the exuberance of childhood into that thing we call Maturity, this is who we were and what we had. And that is point of taking photographs in the first place.

 

 

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Now in Technicolor!

My mother had a “darkroom.”  [Note to the young: people used to take rolls of “film” (plastic stuff inside the camera) into these dark rooms, and do something or other with trays of chemicals and paper coated with magical silver stuff,  and come out with pictures.]  We kids could get in BIG trouble if we barged in there during the few precious moments my mother had to devote to her hobby, especially if the Mysterious Red Light was on.

When I was 8 or 9, I realized that not all mommies made their own photographs. Amazing. Once or twice I was allowed to come in and watch her work the magical alchemy.  Absolutely amazing.

I am still easily amazed by the world of photography. The door to the darkroom remains intimidatingly closed for me, not only because I have quite enough to do but because really good cameras always seem complicated in a way that makes me want to go have a nap.

I’ll stick with my iPhone camera, thank you very much.  But for a couple of bucks at the iTunes app store this week, I got to feel pretty clever as a photographer. The app I bought is called True HDR.

My clever husband, who knows what all the buttons on his camera do, tells me that “HDR” is a technology that was invented to capture the light of stained glass cathedral windows without diminishment of the interior features of the cathedral. The idea is to merge multiple exposures into a single image that is uniformly colorful and well lit.

This is as technical as this review is going to get if I’m to avoid undue napping…  First you pick a subject that will hold very still, and you try to do the same. When you click the shutter, the app is going to take three exposures and it takes a while (so hold still!).  Then you hit “merge” and wait some more. Then you will see a screen with little slide-y bars that enable you to adjust the look. (This is the part where you can give photos that antique, “hand tinted” look if you want.)

And voila! You hit “Save,” sit back, and feel downright smug.  Well, I do.  I mean really, all my life I have photographed beautiful scenes, only to come home and find that my flat, boring pictures totally betray the memory of what I saw when I took them.  I always assumed that’s what you get for not using a decent camera.  But Technology has finally rewarded my simplicity!

 Behold, “Stratocumulus Avec Les Arbres,” with and without HDR:

The color in this particular HDR image is a little over the top, but I feel clever just the same.

-Cynthia

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