Photo Albums

To what extent should a photo album represent history, even personal history? I mean, I regard my photo album to be art to some extent: I do think that the way I put things together therein is supposed to make an impression larger than the sum of its parts to some extent. I just think pictures work better in an album, and not in those little sleeve things that don't do anything more than provide safe separated storage spaces. On the other hand, I also feel a need to maintain historical reality to some extent in there: I don't pull pictures, even if they contain people I'd rather not see again (and there are several of those sorts of people in my photos, over the years: I'm sure it happens tomost folks*). But it also means that I'll put pictures in even if the people in them have changed relevance in my life since I acquired the pictures (due to lack of time, ambivalence, lack of photo corners...)

And yet my photo album is not captioned (Yet. Anyone interested in a photo-captioning get together, soonish?), not is it terribly inclusive, especially from certain time periods where I mostly took photos at dance events- and therefore people would presume that I lived my life in the Rochester JCC social hall and the gym at Hora Keff if they tried to read my life from those photos. (There of course is some metaphorical truth to that**: that environment and its internet off-shoots made up a large portion of my social life at that point.) My point being, this is hardly a daily capturing of my life, just of random important/pleasant events, and other random pictures as I feel inclined to take them (and as people are willing not to/fail at ducking under pillows/covered/notebooks/etc). Nevertheless, it feels like a personal history.




*And this isn't getting into the person whom for several years I didn't want to see ever again Because I didn't have a picture....
**Note that I said Metaphorical. Unlike popular misconception, I have never lived in Rochester or its environs. One or two weekends a year is Not Sufficient Time to establish residency.

Photo Albums

To what extent should a photo album represent history, even personal history? I mean, I regard my photo album to be art to some extent: I do think that the way I put things together therein is supposed to make an impression larger than the sum of its parts to some extent. I just think pictures work better in an album, and not in those little sleeve things that don't do anything more than provide safe separated storage spaces. On the other hand, I also feel a need to maintain historical reality to some extent in there: I don't pull pictures, even if they contain people I'd rather not see again (and there are several of those sorts of people in my photos, over the years: I'm sure it happens tomost folks*). But it also means that I'll put pictures in even if the people in them have changed relevance in my life since I acquired the pictures (due to lack of time, ambivalence, lack of photo corners...)

And yet my photo album is not captioned (Yet. Anyone interested in a photo-captioning get together, soonish?), not is it terribly inclusive, especially from certain time periods where I mostly took photos at dance events- and therefore people would presume that I lived my life in the Rochester JCC social hall and the gym at Hora Keff if they tried to read my life from those photos. (There of course is some metaphorical truth to that**: that environment and its internet off-shoots made up a large portion of my social life at that point.) My point being, this is hardly a daily capturing of my life, just of random important/pleasant events, and other random pictures as I feel inclined to take them (and as people are willing not to/fail at ducking under pillows/covered/notebooks/etc). Nevertheless, it feels like a personal history.




*And this isn't getting into the person whom for several years I didn't want to see ever again Because I didn't have a picture....
**Note that I said Metaphorical. Unlike popular misconception, I have never lived in Rochester or its environs. One or two weekends a year is Not Sufficient Time to establish residency.