Just a Snapshot or Two (Hundred)

Years ago, it seems to me, people were more interested in simply living their lives – or too busy just trying to get by – than in recording evidence of their presence here on earth. It was no trick at all for a person to live 80 years and leave behind only three or four pictures of himself. There’d be one of him as a boy, one on his wedding day, one with his first child and one as an old man at a family reunion.

In my day, things accelerated but not by a lot. There were baby pictures and Christmas snapshots, a few photos from school and maybe a couple taken on graduation day. But even then, people took a shot or two of each significant event and that was that.

The other night, I was busy pasting family photos in yet another photo album. Spread out before me were almost two dozen pictures of an event that had been held at my place last summer. Two dozen photos of a little boy’s third birthday party! And those were just the photos that I had taken. There were three or four other cameras going off all night long too. Only the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson received better coverage, I believe. What will we do when my nephew turns four?

There are photos of the cake being brought to the picnic table. The cake being decorated. The cake being outfitted with candles. The candles burning. My nephew blowing out the candles. The cake being cut. My nephew smashing cake all over his face. My nieces smashing cake all over their faces. There are photos of my nephew with one of his uncles. My nephew with one of his aunts. My nieces with my nephew. My nieces with me. The whole family minus the photographer. The whole family plus the first photographer minus a second photographer.

Had we not run out of film, I’m sure we would have squeezed in a few photos of the neighbours looking over into our backyard to see how our party was going. Maybe one of my nephew with the neighbours. My nieces with the neighbours. The neighbours eating birthday cake. A car going by. The sun going down.

What is this mania these days with recording on photographic paper every moment of our lives? Are our lives really that fascinating? Or are we doing it simply because we can?

Imagine the weight off the shoulders of man like Christopher Columbus, for example, who would have returned to Europe from the New World, kicked off the boots and gone to bed. No films to take in the next day. No nights spent poring over photo albums, arranging shots of his journeys in chronological order. Getting a few blown up to hang over his fireplace.

If I ever discover a continent, I’ll have photos of the inhabitants around my boat, in the boat, wearing my captain’s hat, posing with me and, of course, cutting a cake to mark the occasion.

These days, my home feels like an archives in the making.

But I’m afraid this situation will get worse before it gets better.

The other day, I saw an ad for a videocamera …

(Update 2020: Man, this column got old faster than most. This was all predigital.)

©1992 Jim Hagarty

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.