NPR ran a story about an intriguing concept this morning. The host interviewed Taylor Jones, a 22-year-old who created the website www.dearphotograph.com. Here’s what Jones, in an article at www.npr.org says about how the website came about:
He came up with the idea last year while sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. While flipping though a family photo album, he stumbled across a picture of his younger brother, Landon. “It was his third birthday,” Jones says. “He had a Winnie the Pooh cake, and I was sitting in the same spot my mom was when she took the original photo.” Landon was also sitting in his same birthday seat. So, Jones held up the old picture — taking care to line up kitchen cupboards just so — and snapped a photo. He posted it on his blog, and the rest, he says, is history.
People can go to the website and submit their own photographs, all of which must begin with the words Dear Photograph.
Like I said, an intriguing concept. So intriguing, I started thinking about what picture I would like to rephotograph in the same setting as it was originally taken.
- One from our South Dakota days? Too far away.
- A wedding shot? Too unoriginal.
- A Kodak Instamatic shot of the Badlands from the famous camping trip with my uncle and aunt? Not sure where that one is.
- Something from my teaching days? No, they tore the school down.
Undecided, I opened iPhoto, and there was the scan of a newspaper clipping we found when cleaning out Mom’s house 3 years ago. The clipping records one of my earliest clear memories – the day my aunt took her two daughters, my brother, and me (I’m the one closest to the camera) to watch a parade in our home town. I don’t remember the parade as much as the newspaper photographer who shot the picture. I do remember how safe I felt with my aunt, how much help she said I was, what a big girl I’d become. Heady stuff for a middle child whose major talent at the time was tripping over her own feet.
The caption says 8,000 spectators watched the American Legion Parade that day in 1961. It also lists our names, ages, and the address of the corner where Aunt Donna found a quiet, shady spot (Central Avenue and Fourth Street SE) so we could watch the National Guard trucks rumble past.
Mom and I are going to visit Aunt Donna in a couple weeks. Maybe I’ll take the original clipping along, find that street corner, line up the clipping with the present day location, snap a picture, and submit it to www.dearphotograph.com. I know what to write beneath my submission.
Dear Photograph,
Fifty years has taught me it’s more fun to join the parade of life than to sit and watch it go by.
Jolene
