I’ve been a trifle nostalgic lately. I’m writing a book with historical inspiration, and I’m working on some other projects that have me scouring Pinterest for old daguerreotypes and gorgeous costumes. Yesterday, when talking to a friend, it dawned on me that I’ve got my own unpublished secret stash of inspirational photos sitting in a box on my work table. Family photos. My own overlooked hidden treasure.
Looking through the photos the first thing I noticed is how good looking everyone is. I’m not just talking about physical beauty in the genetic sense; I mean they are dressed well, their hair is combed, and they are posed thoughtfully for the camera. There are no ratty sweatshirts here or duck lips. Just lovely happy people, posing in clean tidy clothes with the attitude that if someone wants to take their photo then by gosh they should present their best side with enthusiasm.
I’m particularly fond of the photographs from my paternal great-grandfather. A pilot in the Royal Air Force, he joined up at the end of WW1 and qualified as a pilot in 1926. Family stories tell of the four crash wrecks he walked away from. He made a table from the recovered joysticks.
Great-granddad Charles Payne lived with his family in Egypt for a while. The photos from this time are fantastic. Full of pyramids and local people, my adolescent granddad in short pants, and the happy faces of a young family. The photos reveal a couple in love. There’s even a saucy recreation of the famous Stieglitz photo of Georgia O’Keefe. Although my great grandparents version features Charles in nude silhouette in the doorway of their home in Egypt. (Forgive me for not sharing that photo here.)
Photography was still new enough in 1926 that it was treated with a little more reverence. These days you can’t buy a pair of slippers without a digital camera add-on. Photo-sharing is practically a global obsession. But 90% of what’s shared is narcissistic and mundane. Devoid of thoughtful composition or any consideration for relevance or context, the internet is a vast wasteland of cats and lazy self portraits that reveal no more about the person or their environment than what they had for dinner or their new pair of sunglasses. I’m guilty of it, too. But after an afternoon spent perusing these photos, truly intrigued by the story that each hints at, I’m resolved to do better.
Hopefully someday when my great-grandchildren look at my photos they will reveal something deeper of me, not just what I ate for breakfast, or the picture on my new coffee mug.
Do you have any favorite old family photos? Please share your stories!
