Kodak Moments

My daughter was crying. She’s normally a level-headed kid, but last week I found her weeping on the edge of her bed. I didn’t need to try hard to work out what was wrong: high school began in three days. Year 7, with all its Unknowns, Firsts, and Fears. I’d be nervous, too. I knew what I had to do. I made sure she saw the embarrassment in my eyes as I smiled and asked,

“Want to see my first day of high school?”

Tucked into the furthest corner of our bookshelves are twelve photo albums, relics of the brief crossover period I – a Xennial – exist in. If you didn’t know, a Xennial bridges the gap between Gen X and Millennials. We are a group characterised by an analog childhood and a digital adulthood. So while I’m too young for a lifetime of family albums, I’m old enough to have started a library before digital took over. The first albums I remember were heavy, ring-bound things with sticky pages covered in plastic sheeting. I’ve looked them up – it seems they were all made by a factory in the US and used what was then touted as ultramodern ‘Fast-Stik!’ technology. Everything about them is implanted in my memory. The patterns on the front. Mum’s handwriting on the spine: DEC 1980 – JUN 1981. The prints inside reflect their decades: matte with rounded edges (early ’80s), then glossy, sharp-cornered snaps (mid-’90s).

Going back further, Grama’s albums started in the 1940s and ran consecutively until Mum’s began. I wonder if there was an official ceremony: the handing over of the baton. Or the glue stick. Grama’s albums didn’t have ‘Fast-Stik!’ but ironically, hers held up better. Tissue paper separated each heavy page, holding square black-and-white prints. By contrast, the albums from my childhood have lost all their glue so if you hold them upright, the photos slip out in a rush – memories falling over each other. ‘Fast-Stik!’ indeed.

Was I unusual in how much I loved these albums? Maybe. My grandparents’ adventures made for excellent photo fodder. But it was often the domestic glimpses I enjoyed most. In old snaps, you don’t get many – film was too expensive for curtains and crockery. Seeing my aunt’s childhood bedroom or Grandpa reading the newspaper felt like time travel.

My childhood shots are more relaxed. Film and processing were more affordable, cameras smaller and more transportable. I marvel at different things. How tanned we all were as kids — slip slop what? And how every time I view the images, my parents get younger.

Bad photos didn’t matter when you only had 28 exposures per roll. Images we’d now delete instantly were paid for, picked up from the chemist, stuck on a page, and kept forever. Neighbour Anne’s closed eyes and open mouth is captured for eternity. Lighting is dim, images often over- or underexposed. None of it mattered: that the photographs were taken, the effort made, was what counted.

The albums themselves were revered objects. When new girlfriends or boyfriends visited, they’d inevitably end up on the sofa with one open on their knees. I’ve experienced it myself:
“There he is!” his mum would exclaim, pointing triumphantly at a round-faced baby with just a smidge of resemblance to my new bloke. The rest of the family would cackle as the embarrassed subject hid behind a cushion. Nothing cemented a relationship more than seeing your hunky boyfriend as a toothless seven-year-old, posing in a mud puddle. And of course, he’d enjoy it too. We all did — watching new loves dip back into our past to see us as we once were: tubby toddlers, or awkward teens.

I miss the ritual of crowding around the book. No one can resist an old photo album. They were our campfires, drawing people together to peer over shoulders and point:
“Oh god – your hair, Dad!”
“Ha! That damned car.”
And inevitably:
“Look, there she is. How young they were. Remember how handsome he was? Oh, she loved that dress.”

Look. Remember. Love.

That’s what family albums did. They laid the past out for all to share. Portable shrines, symbols of respect for what was, reminders to cherish what is. I don’t need to tell you what became of the albums – and why no one crowds around my kitchen table swiping through 26,000 saved photos.

My daughter soon forgot her tears that day and moved on to gleefully roast me for my ’90s eyebrows and questionable jeans. She wanted to see more, and we spent another hour leafing through images that led to stories, that led to laughter, and all was well.

That night, I looked up where to buy new albums. ‘Fast-Stik!’ is no more. But there are other ways to free my photos from my phone and put them back on my bookshelf. And I will.

So we can look, we can remember, and we can love.

~ This article was first published in The Big Issue ~