Photgraph

There is a saying, Take only photographs leave only footprints. This saying is relevant to being out in nature (national parks, beaches etc), it means in a nice way don't pick things like native flowers or plants and don't litter our beautiful landscape with rubbish.

But leaving only photographs has come to mean something very different to me in recent history. Several of my acquaintances have passed away in the last two years. And in this age of the selfie and social media the one thing lacking was current photographs of the most lovely souls.

If you were to die tomorrow would you have a photo that memorialises you? Are you the only one who has these photos? Are they locked up in a computer or phone that only you can share because they are secured with a password.This is something that I have been pondering lately happens when somebody passes away. If your body image is poor you don't like photographs of yourself you shy away from the camera and while we are not thinking about it at the time after our passing the things left behind are the photographs and memories.

In one case, one of my colleagues hated being photographed so much that when she passed away last year some the photos included in her memorial were of her wedding that ended sourly in 1996. Why were they there. That's the complicated bit while her wedding day was a happy day there were not many photos from her life after.

In this age of photography we have invented a new word for the dictionary and while the young are often taking selfies once children arrive in our lives the photos avert to capture their acheivements and cuteness, the school years capture the gaps in smiles, unforms that are swimming on 5 year old and shrinking on the graduating teen and gowns of graduates and brides. But what about the every day life when was the last photo of you taken, if you haven't got one taken in the last 6 weeks, get the camera out and take one today.

The last photo of me on my phone taken in 9/13. 

Go on, I challenge you.


P.S. This blog came about as an elderly friend passed away this morning and the question was asked of me. Did I have photos of him? He lived in a group home with others who like him have intellectual disability, the photos the have were not current As it happens I visited the house regularly and randomly took photos of every person who resided in the house just for occasions such as this. Photographs that were not formal, "mug shots"or depicted as "fun times".