WordSmith: Social-Media stories Vs Old-Photo stories
Gerard Smith tells another great tale in his own inimitable way in his latest WordSmith column...
My brother arrived home for the Blessing of the graves. The morning after, he handed me a bulging folder. It had been given to him by our brother-in-law who’d said, “There’s loads of old photos in it, you might as well have them.”
Taking the folder; and knowing the backstory, I felt a mix of emotions: a pang of sadness, tinged with something akin to annoyance. I felt as though they were photos being off-loaded, at worst, discarded. I put the bundle aside without looking at the contents; then went for a walk to shake off a mood I attributed to Monday morning.
I’ll come back to that photographic bundle. Before that, let’s look at old photos. I prefer to call them pre-internet stories. We all have reams of them: in dog-eared albums, time-bruised boxes and biscuit tins.
There’s a raw reality to them that’s missing from their cloud floating filter soaked social-media counterparts. They’re physical pieces of card; often awkward images taken by unskilled photographers: the wavering hand of an aunt who decapitated heads, the brother who blurred a beautiful moment, the dad who engaged a flash that induced a devilish red-eye. Yet, they’re filled with so much more of what social media encourage us to share: STORIES.
Old photos with all their human mishaps are full of real-life warts and all stories. Social media stories are in contrast often contrived to create the illusion of an enviable lifestyle that encourages an aspiration in followers; who then become consumers that buy into a lifestyle that generates revenue for the social-media-savvy. I say this with an enviable respect for those who have the fluence to influence.
That said, a semblance of a wonderful-life, an illusion of social and familial impeccability has always been monetised. Smoke and mirrors created ideal lives for Hollywood Stars, whose private lives were far from perfect. Yet, their pretend-lives played out in magazines and media were as valuable to the big studios as the parts they pretended to be in their movies.
A contrivance of life has, and will always be, a valuable commodity. The value of a social media picture is not in the photo, but the aspiration in an image that attracts companies to invest in the individual's online lifestyle.
So, where is the value in old photos? I have a framed photo of Barbara Windsor, taken in the 1960s by an eminent photographer; given the celebrity of its subject, it may be worth a few quid.
But our personal old photos? Their primary worth is in the ‘emotional-value.’ The memories they bring back, the stories they recall, and the conversations they kindle.
My late sister Maria, was a great one for curating old-photos. There’s a big plastic box in our house on which she stuck her hand-written label: ‘Precious moments.’ When I look through its contents I feel like I’m watching a silent movie; there’s no dialogue, yet the pictures do a whole lot of talking.
Now, back to that bulging folder delivered by the brother. Alone in the house, I opened it and pulled out its contents. They were those glossy full-colour pre-internet prints. Many of them were of me in my curly-headed prime; before the cap became a permanent feature atop my head.
Perusing them, I had that myriad mix of emotions we experience when seeing our former selves; for me it’s like looking at someone I used to know.
But, looking at these pictures I felt conflicted; there was no lament for my lost youth. No, it was the story that their return to Cavan conveyed: the fracture in a once cohesive family. They’re photos surplus to requirements in my sister’s former-marital home; it makes sense to have them returned.
I made peace with the annoyance I’d felt when my brother handed them to me – then I added them to Maria’s box of ‘Precious Memories.’ We all know that person, the glue that keeps people together. Often, it’s only when they pass we realise it, sadly.
Maria was our extended family’s: sticking-plaster, splint, crutch, the glue that mended many a fissure. When she passed, the inter-familial-fractures became chasms. I write this without attributing blame. Instead, I scribe with a sense of pride in my sister; and disappointment in myself. I didn’t take the baton – and become the ‘good-glue’ she always was.
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