An unfocused picture can teach us a lot about ourselves
I miss seeing pictures that showed people in not-so-perfectly practiced positions. Like the ones that capture us in uncomfortable moments and those with friends and family members making faces that weren’t meant to be photographed.
How we want to be remembered for eternity seems to change with each generation. What we used to try to memorialize in a Kodak moment has now become a filtered-Instagram post. Today’s photos make it difficult to know what is real. I think what I miss seeing on printed little squares of glossy paper is people simply being people.
When I look back at pictures from throughout the last 100 years, the kinds of feelings that run through my mind give me a sense of knowing who people were and what they were thinking. I could tell when the photo was taken because it looks a little too yellow or a little too brown.
The furniture patterns, the height of the rug, the width of the TV set. What we wore and how we wore it. They were all giveaways to knowing how we lived and what was happening at the time.
I could tell that people were ok with being ordinary during ordinary moments. Friends outside a nightclub where almost all you could see was the light of the flash…
