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I'm fond of taking pictures, but I am not a photographer. The noble endeavor of photography is an activity best avoided by non-arty philistines like me. I do, however, think of myself as an old school snapshot taker who loves to take pictures to tell a story. I am such an old school snapshot taker that I used to own and wield the lazy woman's snapshot machine, a Kodak Instamatic camera. Nothing fancy, everything was easy: Snap that E-Z loading film cartridge into the pocket sized Instamatic, aim, shoot, unload the cartridge, take it the drug store, pick up the snapshots one week later. And, woe to me if I forgot to order extra prints; Mom demands a set of pictures from the wedding, the baptism, and the vacation at Lake Tahoe ,and I will need to narrate each and every picture as she thumbs through the glossy photo stacks.
Digital cameras and Photoshop changed everything for this humble snapshot taker. With auto focus, it's still a simple matter of aiming and shooting, but now I can review the pics, like the moment the bride shoves cake into the groom’s mouth. I'd save that, but, if I'm feeling charitable, I could delete the pic where the groom blows frosting out of his nose. With Photoshop, this former Kodak Instamatic owner can mess with images like a 35 mm pro - deepening contrasts, messing with the dispersion of light, saturating colors and airbrushing away red eye and acne with just a click of the mouse. Finally, that trip to the drugstore is no longer necessary; we can print out as many copies our heart desires, including that obligatory set for Mom.
I started taking digital pictures at the same time I launched my personal blog. Nervously, I would insert one of my snapshots into a blog post, usually a safe subject like my kid and her friends throwing gang signs in their Halloween costumes. But, I would squirm with trepidation while clicking the publish button. I was actually showing the entire World Wide Web one of my photos, nay, a snapshot, of the kids throwing gang signs! These snapshots were once reserved only for my mother! Who do I think I am, a photographer? Poseur!
I didn't feel worthy treading into the photographers turf, a sacred ground where my snapshots would never qualify as a photograph. Real photographs consist of studies – the macro view of a flower’s stamens; the painstaking detail of a beaded Valentino gown; the solemn face of a Mexican child in her party dress. My snapshots do not have that singular, compelling power and they are certainly not statements. The pictures uploaded to my blog were included only as bits of illustration surrounded by text, like the "chapter books" we read as kids.
Then, like many online citizens in early 2005, I noticed flickr. Cool chick bloggers I admired like Heather Armstrong and Heather Champ - truly superb photographers, hardly snapshot takers - included rotating flickr galleries in the sidebars of their blogs. As a fairly new blogger, I wanted to embellish my site with all the new widgets, bells and whistles, so I dutifully signed up for a flickr account.
And, much to my delight, I discovered that flickr was teeming with snapshot takers and photographers who used their bandwidths to tell stories. Sometimes a story would be revealed in the captions of serial images. Or, one solitary image would provide the backdrop for a narrative. In some cases, flickr accounts take the role of a blog, with each uploaded image and description serving as a journal entry.
When I come across a great story, I save it in my flickr "favorites". Here are some gems from that collection:
From sakura's flickr photostream, a childhood memory comes alive. Sakura also blogs at the little things:
Reprinted here per terms of Creative Commons.
My first passport photo. My family moved to Canada from Japan in 1973? I remember the thunder storm and the turbulence in my first plane flight. The flight attendants were nice - I think they gave me some colouring books. Apparently I was scolded by my mother about wanting to take my favourite doll - there wasn't enough room. My mom feels guilty about that to this day... and I don't even
