To put those photos up, I had to hunt each one down in my iphoto library, where they're all stored by the date they were taken. I realized something: I didn't take a single photo of Z.--or anyone else--for all of 2006. We have some pictures of me reading to her in the newly-opened store (which are unfortunately unbloggable because we are both wearing shirts with the store's logo). And then this baby
becomes this baby
The thing with the camera was that we filled the memory card, and the pictures of the birth were on there, so I superstitiously didn't want to clear it, and then we lost the camera in the house, which really just means that no one was motivated to look for it. For a year! For more than a year!
Blogging motivated me. My template is Dark and Somber, not to say Morbid. I wanted to have some pictures around the place to cheer it up a little, so I hunted the camera down and took it to Staples and bought it a nice new memory card with lots more gigaram, or whatever, than I can use in a lifetime because it was on sale.
It's not like I didn't know that opening the store threw me for a loop. I was the one being thrown, after all. But wow, we have no pictures of her first birthday and none of her first steps and none of her very cute Purim costume from that year and none of the vacation last summer where she was so sick but she did spend some nice time at the lake. Not one of her cast. None of that. The picture in my profile was taken by a wedding photographer, or it wouldn't exist. It's like I lost a year of my daughter's life.
Right now, I'm wondering about how the blog is functioning in my life in lots of ways--I know! you noticed! you're not dummies!--and, well, this bit about the pictures, bringing the pictures back? It's important.
13 comments:
I'll skirt the meaningful part of the post for this moment and address the technical difficulties. To add more than one Flickr photo to a post, click on each photo, choose "All Sizes" from the selections above the photo, choose the size you want (generally medium), then copy the html code below the photo and paste it into your post (using the composition screen that allows you to edit the html). Repeat this process for every photo you want to add to the post.
Sounds like you lose things in your house all the time! The camera, the computer cord.
I love the picture with the sunglasses and the pacifier.
I'm so bad at taking photos - it just doesn't occur to me most of the time. So there are huge gaps in my kid's life too. And then I just dump them in a folder labeled "photos to organize" - that's really useful.
I'm glad you're getting organized.
Phantom, excellent, thanks! (And "Technical Difficulties" is my tag for meta-blogging as well as computer incompetence.)
Magpie, my house is like this:
Everything that is put away is in anal-retentive order. My books and cd's are sectioned and alphabetized. Iphoto does the date thing automatically, but my pre-digital prints are in boxes by date. My side of the closet has shirts together, pants together, right down the line.
And then everything that is NOT put away is in so many layers on top of that order that when you dig down and find it you wonder why I bother.
Photos kind of disturb me. I mean my photos, not other people's. Which is funny, because I like taking pictures of things and sometimes of people. But I hate the idea of memorializing events because the act of doing so seems to emphasize how fleeting they are.
Those pictures are awfully cute, though.
Niobe, your photos are gorgeous and what you say makes so much sense of them to me. There is a timelessness to the way you frame them so tightly--the image alone, no context.
But ... I was pretty sure you were going ask what would happen if you and Phantom gave me opposite instructions at the same time.
May I skirt the meaningful part of the post for the moment to just report this momentary flash of pride or something at seeing Phantom explain to you how to add a second photo? I mean, I guess I'm like an old man of blogging now, because I remember Phantom and I trying to figure out how to format pictures through discussions in comment boxes lo these many moons ago. Sigh.
You know I've gotten to be pretty hugely into photography these days, so I'm happy to hear that you're taking and posting some photos. Don't beat yourself up over any lack of photos in the past, though. Stuff happens, we find ways to cope.
What cute photos!
Jo(e), thanks!
Scriv, I feel like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants!
Skirting both the technical and meaningful parts of this post, I'll point out a pet peeve: many of my friends with young children take them for (at least) quarterly sessions with professional photographers. Is that really necessary?
I'd much rather have candid shots. Even if only a few.
Speaking as a parent who's never paid for a professional shot in her life, I'd rather have the cash
I'm laughing and laughing at Scrivener's comment. Those were the days, eh?
But also agreeing with the serious part of his comment. These things happen, and the gap in your photographic record will hardly be noticeable as the years go by.
It's not so much the gap--there are grandparental pictures--as the inattention and overwhelm it indicates. And how disconnected I was from the visual world.
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