I know the feeling of desperately wanting to take a picture. Pictures to tell a story, pictures to save a moment in time, pictures to show how I see the world.
My dad, when I was young, loved to take pictures of me, of my mom, of my siblings. He even put me in one of his commercials, for a playpen. Then when I was about ten, he stopped. Was film too expensive? Did it annoy my mom? Did his muse leave? I don’t know. Maybe his muse came to me. I love taking pictures.
I have a memory of watching film being developed. This memory might actually be of a television show or documentary. Dipping paper in chemicals, moving it to another chemical tray, and one more, each time more of the picture would emerge. Then wait and the page was filled, the memory there for all to see. Magic.
Saving holidays, birthdays, vacations, daily life. One snapshot in time brings back so many memories. For instance, the picture of my birthday party, where I am blowing out candles on a cake. We are having so much fun, laughing, anticipating eating cake. But what isn’t shown is that this is the fourth take, we are laughing because my dad made us set this scene up over and over until he got just the right shot. There is a picture of me standing on a bridge across the San Antonio River (many years later I would take a picture of my kids on that bridge), I don’t know if because the sun was so bright or if I moved or my dad did, but I look like a ghost standing there surrounded by sunlight. I liked to make up stories about that little girl ghost. Maybe my dad did too because he is the one who kept that photo.
My dad loved to set up takes so they would be just so. He rarely just took a picture. I am the exact opposite. I wait for a moment to happen and then snap. I love action shots, especially of my kids playing. Soccer or Monopoly; climbing trees or reading a book. I always kept my camera at the ready. A good bit of the time they didn’t even know I had taken a picture until we picked up the prints at the store. Now with my grandchildren and a cell phone it is even easier to capture them.
Pictures are memories, moments in time, moments that may never come again except in our minds. The memories demand sharing to complete the process of the moment. I love seeing my family sitting snuggled on the couch looking at an album. They are saying remember this. And then that happened. Yes, I often take a picture.
—Melissa Tolliver