So here I am in the Mother Country! Beautiful Scotland! It was the longest trip to get here with both flights being delayed due to mechanical problems, never encouraging! And a long wait in Edinburgh to get my suitcase. Although that was not too bad as my nephew made the trip out to the airport, so he was entertaining us all while we waited.
In my business and line of work I am always talking about memories. Making them, capturing them and just having them in general. I always try and tell my clients how important it is to have photography and a good professional photographer in your life. I sometimes feel like a broken record saying the same things to everyone and it can feel a little cheesy at times. The phrases “Memories that will last a Lifetime” and “For Generations to Come” seem to come out of my mouth on a daily basis!
It is not until I come back home and visit with my family and old friends that it really hits me. Its true, the memories do last a lifetime and for generations to come. I just had a look through a photo album that my grandmother, known as Babí to the family, made of my sister and I as kids and some trips she took with my Granddad, known as Dêda (d-yeda). It was so cool to look at that album and see what images she loved and wanted to keep, what was important to her, and to just remember her. Her smile, her style, her grace, adventurous spirit and green thumb.
Babí had the best green thumb! One photograph was of Babí and myself standing in her veggie garden and it brought back some of my favorite memories of having Sunday lunch on the tiny patch of grass surrounded by the bounty of all her hard work. There were potatoes, strawberries, gooseberries, chives, poppies, carrots and so much more. We would have whatever cold foods and goodies we could pack into containers, and enjoy the weather while Babí watered and looked after her plants. Dêda would have to cut the grass with the hand mower, but there was always hay fever and a bad back to contend with, and of course, once the back goes, well that’s it gone!
I talked with my mother and sister about it and we all smiled and laughed and paused for a second to remember the scene in our heads. Yes, the memory could have come up of its own accord, but that picture was the starting point for me for that one memory. Then all the other ones come rolling out of the woodwork and before you know it you are on the floor laughing at something obscure that happened 20 years ago in a distant land, but is still funny today.
What makes us people? Is it the houses we live in, the jobs we have, and the places we are going? Or is it the places we have been and what we have learned from them? Sure I like to look forward. To look ahead to the future, keep moving on and learning and growing. But what we have done in the past, places we have been, and people we have met are what I think truly shapes us. We learn from the past, the good things and the bad things. The happy memories and the sad memories. Our lives are no longer quite with little distraction, but loud and quite frankly all over the place. Meetings, classes, phones, work, computers, obligations, kids, pets, the gym and so many other things fill our lives. We forget the people that make up our lives. I forget the people in my life. I forget people that I haven’t seen in a few years. Does that mean I hold their teachings any differently? No. It just means I am looking ahead a little too much and need to slow down and look back. To sit with a photo album and remember. To read a diary, or an old birthday card sentiment, and laugh.
To look at my old photos at home brings back so much I feel like I want to bring them all back to California with me! To hold them close and never forget. To show people why I love photography so much. That before I was even able to hold a camera, photos were already a huge part of my life. To try and convey that those baby pictures of myself, and my sister and not just a quick shot that doesn’t mean anything, but something so big and important I may never be able to convey what it really means to me. To show my clients that when I say that the images I capture will be “memories to last a lifetime”, and the images will be here “for generations to come”, that its true. There kids will hold them close, and their grand kids and great grand kids. They will look at them as I do mine, and wonder do I have her nose, her eyes or her style. And of course the one that most of us are heard saying as we look as childhood photographs, “What on earth was I wearing!”
So next time you are about to snap a quick shot with your point and shoot or hire a photographer to do a family portrait, remember that it is not just a picture, but actually a memory that you will cherish, and your kids, friends and family will love even after you are gone, as I do with Babí’s pictures from so long ago.
by Nicola Borland
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