Always the
Photographer, Never the Subject
I had a
brilliant idea for this post—a photo of me as a child at Christmas, a photo of me
with my own children at Christmas, and a photo of me with my newest grandchild
this Christmas. Sounds great, right? Except I struggled to find a SINGLE photo
of me with my children at Christmas when they were young. I searched several
years of albums. There were tons of photos of the kids alone and with my
husband, but I was missing in action. Why? I was always the family
photographer, and in an era before the “selfie”, I couldn’t take a photo with
me in it.
Yes, my
husband should have taken photos of me. Years later, I started demanding that
he take one of me on every holiday and on every trip—I joked I wanted proof that
I was alive. Sadly, it seems I really needed that proof. Paging through our
family photo albums, my children and their children might start to wonder if I
was part of their lives at all!
So a word
of warning to the family photographer: get someone to take photos of you! Lots
of photos! Better yet, encourage everyone in the family to take photos. One
person shouldn’t be solely responsible for recording the family. Luckily in the
age of cell phones, that’s much easier than it used to be.
 |
| Me at age 3, my brother at 5 months. Christmas 1962 |
Here are
the Christmas photos of me at three different stages of life. Yes, I finally
found one of me and my daughter when she was one year old. It was a four-generation
photo I made my husband take during a Christmas visit home to my parents’
house. Proof I was alive in 1989!
 |
Christmas 1989: from left, Roxie, Amanda, my Grandma Nora Macbeth and my mom Ione Peterson. |
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