Snapshot - Nov 14 2021

 

Snapshot

Nov 14 2021

There aren't many family photos.

When there wasn't a camera in every pocket.

When pictures were actual objects,

one-of-a-kind

and not easily shared.

And when people were more private

and perhaps more modest, as well,

so we never saw the point

of documenting our lives

as exhaustively as now.

But there we all are

in shades of black and white,

in a battered cookie tin

of brittle strips of negatives

and uncatalogued prints;

faces that will remain anonymous

because those who would know

are now gone for good.

The more recent ones are Kodachrome.

But to me, these lack the gravitas

of black and white,

because those old photos seem eternal

archetypal

larger than life,

while colour is disposable

as mundane as everyday.

The pictures are beginning to fade;

which is disappointing

but only to be expected.

Because nothing is forever

not even us.

There we all are, that is

except for my father.

Who, as the privileged male, the head of the house

naturally took charge,

delegating himself

family photographer.

So, in a sense, he appears in every shot,

invisible

but present nevertheless.

Because we're seeing through his eyes.

Because we can't help but sense him there

the object of our gaze.

Because we remember how he fretted,

urging us to smile

squeeze-in closer,

to keep our eyes open

and look candid, not posed.

As if he hasn't gone anywhere

and is still fussily adjusting the lens

fiddling with light,

positioning us

to get the background just right.

So while the man behind the camera

is never caught

he's also never absent.

His shadow

in every snapshot he took.

And in some

a blurry thumb

obscuring the lens

as he fumbled for perfection.

Because he may have taken charge,

but was never very adept

or good with technology.

An abiding ineptitude

I can't help but find charming.

Which is why, for me

it's these flawed but earnest pictures

that truly capture him.

The perfect candid moment.

The ones I love the most.

There really are hardly any pictures of my family growing up. This may be hard to understand for young people today, when technology makes it easy, social media make it almost obligatory, and there is a culture that is much more narcissistic than modest.

If anything, it was actually my mother who took pictures. She was the one who often had her finger on the lens. But I think the stereotypical fumbling dad (the sitcom dad?) works better in the poem. And the technical ineptitude was very much him. Yes, charming in its way. But also frustrating to see him puzzle over stuff that, to me, was obvious!

Yet while both my parents are kind of present in this poem, it did not start out with any autobiographical intent. Rather, the idea came from this line, which appeared near the end of article by Caitlin Flanagan in today's Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/caitlin-flanagan-aging-60/620679/):

In this light, that old snapshot looks different. There’s my big sister standing next to me, casting a worried, watchful eye over me as she has for 60 years; there’s a little bit of my mother—my mother! It’s been so long since I’ve heard her voice—and there’s my father, present in his absence, recording the moment with his camera.

Present in his absence. I was struck by that phrase and that idea. Reading it I could immediately see the dutiful father, proudly recording his family while feeling that his own presence was immaterial. And how, more generally, the one behind the camera may be invisible, but somehow can't help but be in every picture.