Trash or treasure, sifting out photos

Our new home is officially ours and the cleaning and packing has begun. There are still repairs needed before we can move in, but while I work on painting, cleaning and organizing, my motto is “don’t drive to the new house without bringing something with.”
Because we won’t be officially moving until at least July, I am packing things that do not get used very often. I’ve already taken over several garbage bags of my yarn stash, but don’t worry, if I get an emergency knitting attack I still have plenty to choose from.
The other area I’m working on is photos. I’ve been taking photos since I was a child. My first introduction to the art of taking pictures was my grandmother using her Kodak Brownie camera. The Brownie was introduced in 1900, cost only $1 and was easy to use. It was the start of our love affair with all things pictured, leading up to the current day when photos of anything can be found on the internet.
I started taking photos with my own Brownie back in grade school. My favorite is a photo of my dog Buck standing with his front paws on the picnic table. I’ve taken photos of trips, pretty scenery, all my pets, family and friends.
Oh, the days of black and white and negatives. In the days before digital, each subject was taken several times to make sure at least one shot was not blurry and the subject’s eyes weren’t closed. Film came in rolls of 12, 24, and 36 shots and it was nearly sacrilege to get a roll developed without using all the shots available. It was also nearly sacrilege to throw away any of them.
As I began to pack the limitless supply of photos in my home, I decided it was time to break that rule. My husband and I sat in the livingroom with a garbage can and began to sort. There were rules to this sorting. Each of us had a stack of photo envelopes. All negatives went in the trash. All photos of scenery that were unidentifiable went in the trash. Photos of people we barely know, in situations we couldn’t remember, went in the trash. Duplicate photos went in the trash. Unfocused photos and red eye photos went in the trash. If we were unsure about a photo, we could consult each other, but only if it looked really important.
We also had rules for photos to keep. Anything that made us say, “Ohh, look at this,” was kept. At least five photos of each deceased pet were kept. Several shots of special occasions, weddings, birthdays, family gatherings, were kept. One or two blackmail photos were kept. (Blackmail photos include really unflattering photos of a relative, or a relative or friend doing something foolish).
These were just the loose photos. Last night, I began to go through the photo albums with the same rules. It felt a bit more invasive to throw away a photo I had put in an album, but it was needed.
I felt good about this cleaning project done. Then I began to go through a storage cabinet and found all my cameras. I have a large case with my deceased father-in-law’s old 35 mm film camera along with extra lenses, tri-pod devices, filters and more. I haven’t used this camera in years, but I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. There was also my old compact 35mm film camera with the optional flash attachment and my first digital camera.
An old camera is like an old friend. We had been through adventures together, and shared memories. In this fast-paced world, my old cameras let me stop time and save that fraction of a second for the future. And even though I had just thrown away many of those moments in time, the device that saved them didn’t go in the trash.
I now use a digital camera for nearly everything and I rarely get the photos printed. I have some saved on my computer but I’ve learned that when you allow time to pass and look back on the photos in your camera, they don’t seem as important as they did in the moment you took them.
I still have some archives of photos my grandmother took which I haven’t gotten the nerve to throw away yet. Her photos seem like history; mine are just memories. There’s a difference.
Perhaps it’s a sign of the times. In a constantly changing world, I’ve learned about the importance of the present moment, and the dangers of living in the past. Perhaps that is what enabled me to throw out the unneeded photos. I know all my experiences of the past have led me to who I am in the present. The memories remain, but we can’t go back.
I’m glad my grandmother kept the family photos, and I’m also glad I didn’t inherit her throw-aways. Perhaps when I have lived my life fully and gone, someone will say the same about what I leave behind.