Sentimentality of a Portrait | North Carolina Portrait Photographer

I have a photograph hanging on my wall.  It's a photograph of my grandpa (my father's father), his brothers and his mother.  They were living in Israel at the time, and for this photo they are dressed in full Bedouin costume (at least that's what I'm told, any Bedouin experts out there?).  When I was a child, that photograph hung on the wall of my grandfather's home.  I always loved that photo, and when my grandfather passed away not too long ago, it was one of the things I wanted.  Fortunately, today, we can replicate such photos fairly easily, so my mother made fabulous copies of it to give my siblings and I, while my aunt was able to take the original photograph.  

When my mother's parents passed away, she and my uncle inherited many photos.  They spent many hours bent over these photos, remembering times past, figuring out who the more distant relatives were, and cataloguing them for the future.  The result of this collection and cataloguing was a set of the best Christmas presents I have ever received.  My mother, once more, went to a printer specializing in reprinting and restoring old images, and put together a pair of albums.  The first album was more like a family tree sifting through generations, distant cousins, etc, while the second was a compilation of my parent's childhood.  I could pour over these albums for hours, admiring the photos there.

Before I had these albums, I had no idea my great great grandfather on my mother's side was a volunteer fireman, or my great great grandfather on my father's side had the best beard ever.  

I had no idea how handsome my mother's stepfather's father was.  

Or how lovely my great grandmother (my grandma's mother) was.  

Fortunately, my mother was far more meticulous than I in recording our lives in a photo album.  By contrast, my son's life in photos sits in our computer somewhere, arranged in sterile computer folders by date and event.  As I think about how much I enjoy these past photos, I consider the importance of printing a selection of these images, creating an album for him to page through the same way I so enjoy going back through my life via those albums when I visit my mother, remembering the not-so-distant past (graduating from college) and resurrecting shadows of the distant past (sitting in a stroller in Venice).  

Even if he doesn't care as much about the albums himself, maybe there will be a future generation that does, a distant cousin, a grandchild, a family historian.  That's why photos are important.  They keep the past alive for us.  I still regard the photo of my grandma and grandpa that I keep upstairs with tears in my eyes, wishing my grandma had been with us longer, happy to have been able to introduce my son to my grandpa (we have photos of that event as well).   

So that's why I encourage you to bring a camera with you, print out your photos and create albums.  Who knows how it will be appreciated, but it will be appreciated.  Someone will love those photos, pour over them, and remember through them.

Edit: My mom would like to point out that I'm wrong, my aunt does not have the original photo of my grandpa and his family, my parents do!