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Nostalgia: Photo albums then and photo albums now

Lady Speak

Recently, I was going through our family’s photo archieves and came across photos taken back in the day. Those photos spell out authority, relevance and dominance. Just by looking at them, one is able to pick out who is who in the family. Fast-forward to our generation, look at the family portraits thrown left, right and centre both online and offline and you will be left trying to figure out who does what in the family. The photos really have no direction, if anything, everyone is all over the photos doing anything and everything.

The memories we are keeping for our children are going to be part of serious entertainment to them in future if not confusion. Gone are days when a couple would stand side by side with the man slightly behind to show protection during a photo session. In this generation, roles have been reversed, the person behind the camera no longer calls the shots, instead, those posing for photos call the shots. Instead of the camera person yelling “Three, two…go!” those of us posing keep the camera person on standby and give orders on when they should click along. Have a look at the photoshoots all over, men and women running after each other and capturing the moments while at it. You get to a home and meet expensively mounted photos on the walls of husbands carrying their wives shoulder high. Of children somersaulting on the dining table and siblings pulling each other on the floor like wheelbarrows. Seriously my fellow parents, what memories are we really trying to capture? Plastic memories?

What really happened to the composed family portraits? Where did the rain start beating us? Or did it start beating these people behind the lenses? I know times are changing but could we kindly let families be? We are fast changing our families, passing wrong information not only to the outside world but to our children. No wonder children think it is okay to run very fast from behind the parent and jump on their backs with no warning. What if they one day break your poor back? What if you one day come down flat like the walls of Jericho?  

Some of these habits are picked from right under our noses. What happened to taking a child to the studio and just taking beautiful photos without making them pull some weird stunts? I have even seen some parents hold the camera person hostage during a photo session just waiting for their infant to pee so they can take a clear shot of the act and make merry about it. I understand times are changing and so are we, what I fail to understand is what motivates us to take the direction we have taken. It has actually gotten to a point where a photo taken with hands akimbo next to a grave is worth a frame! As if one is the Messiah rehearsing His comeback as they wait to raise those who are perfectly resting.

These are the very people who will find their folks back at home tilling the land and they will request for a photo shoot with the ‘jembes’. Soon they will be requesting for a drop of your sweat to take such shots then take credits for all the land tilled in the photo! Now, to those people who ‘go live’ on social media while driving, I will call a press conference shortly to address your problem.

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