Family Snap Imperfections

A day before my birthday in July, I found out that my uncle Peter died of cancer. While it wasn’t unexpected, it was still a shock.

Two days later I was on a plane to Australia to attend the funeral. The day after the funeral, I drove 5-hours south from Grafton to Old Bar, where my aunt and uncle live and where I spent a considerable amount of my childhood.

During my three days at Old Bar, I did something that I had been meaning to do for years. I went through about 10 volumes of family photo albums and scanned a big pile of family photographs. It was an amazing experience looking back through photos that showed a fragment of my life from 20 plus years ago. While there were many things wrong with the photos from a composition, lighting and framing perspectives, there was something really beautiful about the imperfections, which I just love.

There is no doubt in my mind that most people that look at the photo above will pass it off as a family snap. It is a family snap.

This family snap reconnects me to a time; a place and to family members whom I grew up with. Looking at this one photo brings back a huge flood of memories of my life during that time.

Today, these scanned family photographs feel like the most valuable possessions I have.

—–