Capture: One picture of you, and no more
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
That photo is now also in the very same album.
That is so great. It reminds of this, but better.
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Jos,
I think it's how my brain works, I looked at the photo and did the same. I still have to see which hand my watch used to be on to remember left from right. :)
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I came across this forgotten photo recently when sorting some papers. It is interestingly prescient of my later interest in disability issues. I like how the supposed passive occupants of chairs have the same body language and resigned expression. I had no idea who Russell Kerse was (the head of CCS, and significant disability activist), and was slightly overawed by Helen - who was actually quite friendly.
It is from the Newsletter of the National Parks Centennial Commission (hence the poor reproduction quality) about 1988. The event was the launch of a book 'Out and About' about accessible parks and gardens which was then a new idea, supported by the young energetic minister who was having a tough time fighting the tsunami of Rogernomics. The local playcentre was asked to come along and this photo was staged by the photographer. Oscar, who preferred to run, was strapped into another child's pushchair while the rightful occupant had to stand behind. I'm not sure how I got into the photo, and would have been reluctant (particularly as in playcentre mother mode).
The accompanying text records that the launch was not straightforward, as the venue was not as accessible as hoped.
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This is my photo, taken last year I think. It kind of captures the image of me I have in my head, which most photos of me don't, I find.
And yes, I do have an arm lodged in the back of my head. It's a long story and I have to hide it carefully whenever I leave the house.
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Sacha, in reply to
accurate, right down to the stroking minions
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Choosing a picture for this thread (just one), has been more thought provoking than I first realised. I’ve been through the boxes of photos new, old and older. I’ve looked at many of them in new ways. Why is everyone in the background staring, like really staring at the person taking the picture (my mum) of me aged 18 mo and my dad at the local swimming pool, what in the world was my mum doing that they are all looking?
All those early pictures, no way I could choose just one to hold onto. I’d rather just hold a congolmerate memory – that way I have all the important early moments and all the important people wrapped up together..
So, eventually, it was easier to choose one that captures for me a very special (recent) time on a 5 day training course in a fabulous garden in California. -
Hats with a long history. I think this was at Belt Road Motor Camp in New Plymouth. My mother (d. 2001) behind and a sliver of my sister Diana (d. 7 March 2014) on the left.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
So stylish x
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Nine months pregnant with the first child, in our first house. My husband took this and I remember us laughing about the looming "Attack of the 50 Foot/50 Month Pregnant Woman" angle. I chose this* because a) it is silly and says something about my marriage, which is filled with jokes; b) it's a picture of me on the cusp of a very large, joyous, time-consuming life change that I wanted very badly and had some difficulty achieving; c) the baby in there turns four on Tuesday and I am sentimental.
*I think I might change my mind about this choice of photo about 27 times in the next few days, but bugger it.
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Jos, in reply to
You look exactly the same Geoff! :P
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Sacha, in reply to
it's the hat :)
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JacksonP, in reply to
it’s the hat :)
Maybe. ;-)
Although, after this I might never be seen in public again, cause unless I'm mistaken, striped shirt and collar up is just rule number one in disguise.
<hides>
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Geoff Lealand, in reply to
I have long wondered where that hat of mine had got go.
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Sacha, in reply to
someone adopt this charming boy :)
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Jos,
Jackson taking the pith
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Sacha, in reply to
it's where the heat lies #chilli
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I was really surprised by the conclusion I’ve come to here, the photo I’ve ended up with. I nearly chose another, from the Wellington book launch, but it seemed weird because you could see one of my upper arms and there was no tattoo. Let’s call that an illustration of why this isn’t a photo of me as a child, and not “having no happy childhood memories”.
This was taken by Megan, at my Best Friend’s birthday, at Matterhorn in Wellington, which is one of my favourite places. Like a lot of my most cherished photos, it was taken in hideously low light and the company of alcohol. I’d had a fantastic couple of days, and I was enormously happy, which I think is evident. Also it reminds me of something another dear friend of mine once wrote:
…the grin she saved for special occasions that implied someone was going to have a lot of fun, and someone else was going to feel strangely compelled to stay despite it. “Hello. I’m Foxx. I like needles.” Briefly she paused as though reviewing that. “I meant Presents."
That grin.
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I was at a party sat on some stairs in a hallway between two doors. Chaos theory describes pattern points and pinch points that connect two attractor states. And there sits me, at University for the first time between two lives; one rejected the other unshaped by endeavour. The strange thing is that I am there at all. I can only recall going to one “proper” party in my time at University. I never have felt comfortable making conversation with strangers when I have no job to do. So it is odd to see me animated and at ease in this picture. Elements of chaotic systems are known to do unstable things preceding and between phase shifts.
It is definitely me though, the bleached Levis, offensive earrings, the little rubber band that retains the tongue of my favourite leather belt. Oh yeah, that’s me in a very novel state.
I got my second chance at life through education. To be captured on such flattering terms just as my life was flipping from one state to another seems to underline my extraordinary good fortune.
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An interesting conceptual challenge to find that one photo of me for me, then this choice was easy – on the tops above bushline on the south side of Dusky Sound, southern Fiordland, January 1978.
A pivotal time in my life, immersed in working towards becoming a rock doctor, but in such an environment nascent interests in ecological science and practice were being nurtured too. The kiwi both real – a female southern tokoeka surprised and surprising in its low-alpine habitat – and symbolic, perhaps foreshadowing my interests in cultural nationalism to come.More layers in the history of the artefact – originally a slide/transparency, long lost with a selection of my best slides, but in the meantime a print in poor 1970s colour dyes made for parents, rephotographed from my mother’s photo-album the week after my father died 30 years later.
The scruffiness of course – to varying degrees it’s always been me. But my kiwi co-subject – for the first time I’ve noticed the matching hairstyles. The kiwi’s grooming is sub-standard, perhaps its mother too would think it had been dragged through a gorse bush backwards (thereby being not far wrong).
The photographer is implicit – my wife after six weeks of the 23 years, mother of our children, friend again. I’m looking anxiously at her – “Quick! take the photo, these claws are sharp, her legs are strong and I’ve only gottaholda-one-othem!”
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Grant McDougall, in reply to
Yep, definitely Grant R.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Like a lot of my most cherished photos, it was taken in hideously low light and the company of alcohol.
Same. I think this photo is more about the person I'd like to be than the person I am, but it has it all, especially epic duckface and stupidly big hair.
(Selfies and visibility are important to me.)
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
This is my best friend Carol, and I, and our dear friend Sue.
I noticed a little heart hovering over your heads,
I noticed the patterns of camera movement,
I realised at once,
A distant reflection had morphed into a symbol of love.
;-) -
Perhaps because I think I'm ugly,
Perhaps because I'd think it vain,
Perhaps because I think it shows me
That I am,
Completely insane. -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
And so it has. I never noticed that.
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I guess I am around three in this photo. I don't remember it being taken but I know it was in our garden in Nelson and the grapes were almost certainly off the vine that grew there. I was often serious in photos though I recall being a happy child as well as a thoughtful one.
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