I have a photo of myself when I was probably less than a year old. It’s a candid shot taken by my thoughtful mother who tried to capture her little boy in his element one afternoon when his older siblings were at school. It’s blurry, in bad lighting, taken with an old inexpensive camera. I’m just on the shag carpet, the place I spent most of my time in those days. In the picture I’m crawling…maybe this was one of the first times I started to crawl. I’m not even looking at the camera. I don’t know for sure, but I get the sense that in that moment my mom was not prodding me to look at the camera and smile. I imagine she just saw me there and wanted to capture that moment of me exploring and learning, trying to understand this world I found myself in.
On first glance most would probably think this was a throw away shot. An uninterested baby boy crawling on the old carpet in a house surrounded by a couple of toys with some furniture in the background. If it was taken today, it would surely find itself a victim to the delete button. There’s no space on our phone’s memory for non-Instagram worthy shots. Perfectly framed cute smiles in some perfectly staged setting are the only thing we have patience and time for now.
If it was taken today, it would surely find itself a victim to the delete button.
Luckily things were different when this photo was taken. There were no do overs, no delete buttons. You didn’t even know what you really had until you picked up the photos from Walgreen’s three or four months after the first of the 25 shots were taken. By the time you first saw your photography skills on paper, they were set, permanently laminated and stamped with the Kodak logo on the back. By that time, you’d already paid for them, each photo came out to be about ten cents apiece, so you kept them all. Even the bad ones that didn’t turn out as you hoped when you pointed that lens and snapped a shot months earlier. That mental connection of pictures to money saved many, to live out their lives in shoeboxes stacked in closets.
Similarly, this picture of me on the carpet survived. Happily it has turned out to be anything but a throwaway or something that should have been deleted if the technology had allowed in those days. It has become a powerful reminder and a sentimental treasure.
As I now sit back and watch my baby daughter learning to crawl I see the concentration on her face. I see the focus she has on her surroundings. I see her experience and study every bit of carpet she touches. I feel like I can see neuro pathways being built inside her brain with every new movement. As I watch her, I think about this picture of me. Here is this little photo that captured me in the same state I see my daughter in now. I can see this is such a formative moment for her. Just crawling on the carpet, surrounded by her toys. This photo is the only evidence I have of my formative day to day growth. No one is trying to get me to smile, I’m not in some special place. I’m just there, in my home on the carpet learning how to crawl. Experiencing my very first moments of independence. Learning that I can move from one place to another.
Seeing this picture helps me remember to capture those moments for my daughter. It reminds me that it isn’t always about being perfectly staged, it is about capturing the everyday moments of her life. Some day she will be able to look back at the seemingly boring pictures of her just exploring her world. When that day comes, she might have a small hint of a memory of her touching the carpet surrounded by her toys in the only place she had truly known up to that point. The place where she has done all of her learning and growing. The place that set the foundation for the rest of her life. She will always have a connection to that place and the things that surrounded her there. How important it is to capture those memories for her so they are never lost.
Seeing this picture helps me remember to capture those moments for my daughter. It reminds me that it isn’t always about being perfectly staged, it is about capturing the everyday moments of her life.
Take these kinds of photos. The ones with the kids exploring the house, the ones with the baby trying to eat the remote, the ones with the toys all over the ground. The perfectly staged pictures are going to be taken, you don’t have to worry about that. Take the photos of everyday life, take the ones that are not Instagram worthy. Those are the ones that will someday be the most cherished. A favorite toy, an outdated piece of furniture, an old-style box of cereal. Those are the pictures that have nostalgia and bring back those little memories you forgot you had. Those are the pictures your kids will be excited to see 30 years from now.
