When was the last time you printed an image? Hand wrote on the back of it who was in it, and put it in an album to look over at a later date?
I was round at my parents’ recently and they have piles and piles of real photographs. Over the years, they have had these sent to them by friends and family. Some of them have no inscriptions; others simply read “Dear Chris and Mary Ann, with love x” and still others have whole letters on the back of them. Not just from special occasions but sometimes simply to say hello. They felt somehow so much more personal than the standard tag-and-message on photos online.
They are all different sizes, some scrappy, some pristine, and some Polaroid. (Oh! The magic of Polaroid… but that’s another post). It was wonderful to look through them with and to decipher the words on the back. They fill in the gaps in the writing with stories they know by heart.
Wouldn’t it be such a lovely start to a day to open an envelope to be greeted with not only a handwritten note but also a photograph; perhaps a recent one, perhaps one from your past?
And so…
It got me thinking. I spend an inordinate amount of time taking photos and am always accompanied by my trusty camera. Yet the last pictures I printed so I could hold them in my hand, annotate them, show them to someone without the aid of technology, were well over a year ago, just after the Romania banger rally.
I have a new resolution to add to my existing ones and find some photographs among my digital files which make me smile. Then I’ll have them printed. In the post, they’ll go to the people who shared those memories with a note on the back.
Who would you post a photo to?