For Heaven’s Sake, Just Take the Photo!

I’ve never been nostalgic. As a child, I often spent weeks away from home at my grandparents’ house or at the home of friends, without a single thought of what I might be missing in my own family. I am very much a creature of the moment.

I’ve also never been photogenic. People rarely believe me when I say this, but then they take a photo of me and remark, “Oh, I see. You’re right.” I’m short, my frame is square, my hair and clothes are inevitably messy, my eyes are squinty in bright light, and if I know someone is taking a picture, my face goes all stiff. I find it impossible to smile on demand. I usually try to avoid being photographed if at all possible. Only a professional photographer who takes hundreds of shots can create a presentable photo of me. Which explains why my author photo is a bit dated.

Selfies are mystifying to me. Who wants yet another photo of herself in front of another landmark? Do all selfie-takers worship themselves? As a child, I had posters of the astronauts and Olympic skiers I adored on my walls, not a single shot of myself. Equally mystifying to me are snapshots of meals or drinks or clothing on Instagram and Facebook. Living animals and plants and landscapes, I can often appreciate.

Put all of these challenges together, and it makes sense that I have very few photographic mementos of my past. In recent years, I’ve realized what a tragedy that is. Late last year, a dear friend of more than 40 years passed away. While searching for a photo to put on his memorial page, I was appalled to discover that couldn’t find any. There were a few action shots taken during backpacking adventures we’d done together, but none of just the two of us, and none of him by himself. I sat down and cried. Why hadn’t I taken more pictures? It simply didn’t seem important at the time, but now it does. I ended up cropping his image out of a photo his friends had sent to me from his solo trip to Egypt. Thank heavens my Pixel phone has a magic erase function to eradicate extraneous people from photos.

For a local adventure magazine, I wanted to write a story about backpacking the West Coast Trail, also called the Lifesaving Trail, on Vancouver Island. Of course it needed photos to illustrate the amazing landscapes and challenging obstacles along the route. I had a handful of old pictures, but none that were good or particularly useful for the article. I remember the trip in vivid detail, but I was building campfires and climbing ladders and ferrying people and gear across rivers in cable cars instead of snapping photos. Honestly, what is wrong with me?

My hiking club likes to post photos of every hike, but I have often thought, why? We have hundreds of photos of the same place. Now I get it. It’s to document the people who were there.

So now, even though it’s not something I naturally do, I try to remember to take photos of my gatherings, whether the events are ordinary or extra-special. You never know when you’ll want to look at that memory again.