Picture Taker

I would like to say I am a photographer, but I am not. I've never taken a class. I should. I love taking pictures.  That's why there are over 16,000 pictures on my laptop — don't worry, they are all backed up on an external hard drive.  I know big words now, like "laptop" and "hard drive".  I know others, too, but they really aren't important. I want to talk about pictures and why I take so many. I've been self-analyzing again. It's a horrible habit of mine; my degree in Psychology doesn't help — it just feeds the need.

I think I take so many pictures because there aren't many of me from when I was growing up. My mother keeps a hatbox in her living room full of old photographs. I've looked through them several times, and while the box is full, there just aren't as many of our little family as I'd like. So therein lies the need. I'm not even sure that my parents owned a camera when I was growing up; I don't remember ever seeing them with one. But surely they must have had one, right? Or were their pictures given to them by other relatives? I need to find out. I bought my first camera when I was in high school. Just a cheap one, but it was all mine. I would plop a roll of film in it, and I'd take pictures of every event that I was involved in. Horse shows, being at the lake with friends, dances with boyfriends--but I was always behind the camera. And now I want to know why.

After I got married, picture-taking became almost as important to me as whatever we were doing. I think that taking pictures was actually a part of the event. Whether it be vacationing or just having friends over — I wanted it documented. I wanted to be able to look back over my pictures and remember when. I wanted to be able to say--I was really there, I really existed, I lived a life that was worth something. I used to think a lot (and still do) about my children having more than a hatbox to look through. I began making photo albums like crazy — everything had to be photographed, put in an album, and written about. I want my children and my grandchildren to be able to look through the albums and get a sense of what our lives were really like. I want them to have memories of us, all of us, etched in their minds.

As a child, I wasn't in as many photos as I should have been — no one was behind a camera. I feel huge voids — where are my holiday memories? There aren't really enough pictures of me to piece together my childhood. My children won't be able to say that. Their mother is and always will be a picture-taking freak. I am the first to admit that flaw, and I am the first to say, too bad. I will take pictures of my family until my little fingers can no longer hold the camera and press the shutter button. My grandchildren will be able to look through my photo albums and literally watch their own parents' lives flow past page by page right before their eyes. Yes, pictures are important to me — but why am I always the one taking pictures?

I have a couple of theories — one being that I am self-conscious about my looks — my face is too round (a polite way of saying fat), and I usually don't like the way my hair turns out, especially my bangs. I am being very vulnerable here by admitting how vain I really am. They are just excuses--I know. So why — why am I always behind the camera? Another theory I have come up with is that — if I am behind the camera —I have control over the memories captured in the photo. Only fun and smiles and lots of friends and family, only the most beautiful of scenery, only the most vivid of colors--those are the memories that make it into my albums. The best of the best. So maybe that's it, maybe it all boils down to control. I don't know. Or maybe I just want my children to have the memories that I never had. I do know, however, that I will continue with my picture-taking; I will always keep my camera in my handbag; I will continue to protect my memories because, in the end, they will be all that is left of me and mine for my family--those memories on a page.

I love taking pictures, I love looking at pictures, I love remembering when.
Sweet memories to pass the time — my time, my past...

I'm in Italy