Letter from the Editor: Capturing life's memories one snap at a time

Apart from my distressing attempt at cooking during my recent “staycation”, I also did a bit of spring cleaning.

We’ve only been in this place for a couple of years so there really shouldn’t have been too much to clean out.

But hidden in the back of a cupboard was an unmarked box which had been shoved in there during the move with the intention of sorting it out “when I had time”.

It was a box of old cameras and no, I don’t know why I kept them either.

I’m the latest – and sadly probably the last – in a long line of family photographers, all purely amateur but all with a passion for capturing our lives in photos.

My maternal grandfather in particular loved taking photos and fill-ums and I am grateful that he took such an interest in chronicling the lives of his ancestors and his descendants.

I am the proud holder of the family history cabinet, which includes about six enormous photo albums in which he painstakingly labelled every photo with names, dates, locations and some quirky memories.

Unfortunately, his spelling was atrocious and as organised as he was, we’ve since discovered that not all the facts he recorded are actually factual.

Dad’s family, on the other hand, had little money to spare on luxuries like cameras. I’m fortunate to have the few family photos his mother had stuck on her family photo wall (the back of the cupboard dividing the lounge room and a bedroom). Nana did label some of them with names – written in biro on the photo itself.

But back to my box of old cameras, some of which actually still contained film.

To anyone under 20, that sentence probably makes no sense whatsoever. What’s this film stuff? Likely the only camera they know of is the one in the iPhone permanently attached to their hand.

Well kiddies, in the olden days when we wanted to snap a pic, we’d reach for the camera, adjust the settings to make sure the subject was in focus, click the button and then wind on the film. Most rolls of film had the ability to capture 24 or 36 photos but you couldn’t see the picture immediately.

You had to wait until you finished taking those 24 or 36 photos, then you had to take it to a camera shop to get the film developed, which could take a week or more before you actually had the photos in your hot little hand.

Opening the envelope containing those photos was like opening a Christmas gift – you never knew what you were going to get, at least for most of us amateur photographers.

Sometimes the film had been in the camera for so long you’d forgotten what photos you’d taken so often the result was a nice surprise. But other times you’d buggered up the focus so half the photos were blurs, or you’d cut off half of nana’s head, and you were so disappointed you could cry.

Once you had those hard copy photos you’d carefully label them and put them in a photo album – right?

Before my favourite son came along, I was fairly good at putting photos in albums, including dates and names (having learned the lessons of previously mentioned grandparents).

However, in the excitement of taking photos of every waking moment of our newborn, plus the lack of sleep caused by the newborn being awake every moment, my attention to detail started to fail.

The growing pile of photos waiting to be lovingly placed in an album grew. And because we had far-flung devoted grandparents who needed to be kept up to date with favourite child’s progress, I started ordering double copies of EVERY photo so I could mail them off.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns I made a concerted effort to sort them out, forcing myself to throw out photos (especially the blurry ones and the ones with nana’s head chopped off) and try to put the remaining ones in order.

I think trying to organise them chronologically stressed me more than being in lockdown and the enthusiasm didn’t last long. My husband would walk past the dining room table covered in photos and just shake his head. I think his question about what I was actually going to do with them when they were sorted may have tipped me over the edge.

Before I gave up in disgust and reclaimed the dining table for a less stressful 10,000-piece jigsaw, I managed to sort some into (rough) years, then when I gave up on trying to play “what year was that”, others were thrown haphazardly into boxes with rough labels – pre-child, in-laws, out-laws, family – neither in or out laws – friends, pets, holidays, houses etc.

There’s still a couple of boxes of photos which I didn’t have the brain energy to categorise. You know the ones – the mother/father/brother/sister with partner number two who you couldn’t stand, or the happy holiday snaps with friends who are no longer in your lives.

Regardless, all photos are wonderful memories of our lives, of happy times together, people we loved, significant firsts, significant birthdays and even farewells to significant people who we don’t ever want to forget.

So maybe I should find a place that still develops films and discover what memories might be hiding in that box of old cameras.