Photographs

[gategrrl]

Here's a question I pose to my flist --

Assuming you have a stash of photographs and snapshots from years back, and you're looking through them, what do you do when you find a photo or series of photos featuring someone you're not close to?

[Poll #798843]

Comments

[amycooper.livejournal.com]

I think it all really depends on what the picture was of and my exact relationship with the person (and, in the case of my ex, how hard it is to cut him out of the picture without making it look funny).

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course.

I transferred out of a college where'd I'd had some rotten experiences (it was a heavy-drinking school, lots of cocaine, hey it was the early 80s!). Anyhow, a couple of years later, I came across some pictures of my abusive boyfriend, and starting throwing them out. My then current BF (now husband) at the time suggested I not throw them all out because I might be able to look at them later. Thing is, I never want to see that person's mug again, I hate him so much. I ended up keeping just one photo but I haven't looked at it in years.

I can now look at pictures of some people I knew ten years ago without that well-of-hate surging up, because time did manage to dim (or at least put behind me) some of the things they did, and make them less important to me. So I went ahead and put pictures of them in a scrapbook about something else that was more important to me. They were, after all, part of that experience, and I don't want to whitewash my life.

High School pictures? LOL- I'm lucky if I can remember some of the other kids' names, let alone some of the stuff that went on!

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

High school? *g* I have no use for that, really. *g*

I think part of my attitude is that I really don't look at old pictures from my life very much. I enjoy seeing pictures of my kids when I was little, but what I enjoy most is looking at pictures of my parents and grandparents when they were young and at various points in their lives. So...I suffer all my own hideously ugly pictures and just don't look at them.

When it comes to others, there are lots of people I don't care about, but there's nobody I really hate all that much. Also, I have zillions of print photos and nearly all of them are in boxes--and not in nice acid-free photo storage boxes either. They are literally tossed and all mixed up and some of them getting bent & ruined... *g* I can't bring myself to throw them out or cut them up, but I obviously don't care enough to sort through them. *g* I tried years ago, but every time someone goes through the pictures, they get all messed up again, so I decided that I just didn't really care, even though I sort of do. *g*

I also think that I'm never going to get to this project in my own lifetime, but the pictures will be there for my children if they want them.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I never throw away any photos or deface them in any way unless I have copies. Even when I was doing scrapbooking, I always used copies of the pictures.

Even when I take digital pictures, and even when some of them suck, I never delete them. *g* I don't know why. I can't do it.

When it comes to old friends I never see and/or people I never liked that much, I still see pictures as almost a sort of sacred history that shouldn't be defaced or thrown out.

I never saw the point in cutting old boyfriends out of photos or tossing pictures of an ex out or something like that. It's still part of your past. That person existed. Someday, you or someone else may want the memories. If not, well, I just stick'em in a box and forget about them.