Saturday, March 17, 2012

Evolution

These daffodils were first spotted on February 18, and I took the final one, with them in bloom, yesterday, March 16. In less than a month, they went from little green sprouts into flowers. Sometimes I think if I took a picture in the morning and then again in the evening, I would be able to see a difference. Once the flowers of spring erupt, there's no stopping them.

What surprises me is how I turn my back and stop paying attention and before I know it, a bright spot of color catches my eye. I love it, and in another few weeks I'll be taking walks in the neighborhood just to capture all the flowers that will bloom and disappear in the blink of an eye. Cameras are so nice; I just wish that digital cameras had been around decades ago... but then I would be inundated with even more pictures. I realized the other day that I have almost 10,000 pictures in my iPhoto library. I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a later version, but I am fearful that I might not be able to find my pictures without having to search around in virtual file drawers. Nothing is ever simple with computers, it seems. But with digital images, I take way more pictures than I once did.

I have actual, not virtual, drawers filled with pictures I can't bring myself to throw away, and every time I go through them, sorting, I find something that takes me back to past adventures and people long gone. The passage of my own evolution from a little girl to a senior citizen is rather interesting to contemplate. Those drawers filled with old negatives I'll never look at again, and snapshots that are a permanent record of times gone by, who can throw those things away?

Long ago, I remember my parents had amassed a huge footlocker filled with pictures taken of relatives and friends that were so old that nobody could recognize many of the people in them. I remember going through the footlocker back when my parents were alive, sorting pictures by era. I think my siblings took some of the pictures, and I myself have a few of them, old memories of days gone by.
Norma Jean and Jan 1947(?)
When I don't see somebody for a long time, they remain in my mind's eye the way they were when I last saw them, as if time only passes when I'm watching. Does everybody do that? There have been times when I've been absolutely shocked to discover that a relative who was a kid when I saw them last has become a parent! Boy, you turn your back for a minute and everything changes. Time marches on, unless someone snaps a picture that freezes a moment to be exclaimed over and appreciated sixty years later. I'm glad I became a photographer... just in time.
:-)

31 comments:

  1. I love that photo of you and Norma Jean, it is adorable. Not long ago I saw some photos of a friend's daughter on Facebook. The last time I saw her in person she was a toddler, now she has a toddler. Where did all those years go?

    I really like your sequence with the daffodils DJan, the one's in my yard look like the middle photos but will be blooming soon.

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  2. What nice pictures! Too bad the early ones of you and your sister weren't in color. I have quite a few photo albums that are falling apart because the gummy pages that hold the photos are drying out. I wish I could find albums that are more permanent.

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  3. Our daffodils are just poking their heads through the earth - three months too early.
    I am very happy to find out that someone else remembers a person as they were - without regard to time passing. It can make for some shocks though. I have a half step great niece who will be twenty next year. How did that happen?

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  4. ha i could have told you which of those little girls was you...smiles....it is cool to go through those memories...my boys love looking through old photos...spring is starting to spring here as well....bits of color popping up here and there....

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  5. Beautiful Daffodils - mine haven't even sprouted, however, with the 72+ temps of yesterday perhaps that'll scoot the little fellas up outta the ground. We still have 3 inches of ice in the back yard, that is melting more and more every day.
    I love the photo of you and your sister. Very nice to have those old pics to gaze upon. I also remember people as they were and sometimes it shocks me, when I haven't seen someone for years and then we meet unexpectedly in a mall on on holiday and this stranger comes up and speaks to me - some people change drastically over the years to a totally different face and yet, some of us keep the face from our childhood. You apparently did :)

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  6. I can relate to your photography hobby. It captured me when I was in grade school. It is a fascinating hobby which I thoroughly enjoy. Your photos give me a lot of new ideas that I can try.

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  7. Great picture of you and Norma Jean. I have drawers filled with old photos and I'm afraid to even count how many photos I've got on iphoto!

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  8. really enjoyed this post. and wholeheartedly agree about how shocking seeing faces after years can be. still see nieces and nephews as they were as young kids, then BAM! middle-aged parents... i, too, have a bucket of negatives i can't bear to part with, and about 10 photo albums i've put together over the years - at least they're kept chronologically and with labels in a lot of cases... have a year+ of photos to add to them, too. *sigh*

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  9. A perfect example of this is the Kennedy brothers. Jack & Bobby remain as young men in our memories, Only Teddy, the youngest, appears as an old man in our memories.

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  10. I'm in a similar mode Jan. Sorting, categorizing, disgarding, preserving and protectin. Hundred of pictures and slides of long forgotten mountains, plains and rivers. Cities forgotten. But the people always saved. Right now its convering abut 25 carousels of Ektachrome slides into a digital format. A friend has a machine that make the process simple (but somewhat time consuming) It needs to be done. Someday, I'm hoping my son will appreciate the effort...:)

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  11. I just threw away many envelopes of negatives that were in the church archives. No one will ever go through them and have photos printed, and we have run out of room in the cabinets assigned to the church historian (of which there is no one right now). There are, as you say, drawers full of pictures, most unlabeled so we have to guess as to what, when, and where. Photo processors used to print the date on the picture, but no more. Also, now everything is digital. Not too sure how we will archive those. But, I don't want the responsibility.

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  12. Oh, and as for daffodils...ours are all finished this weekend. The rain really finished them off.

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  13. What a precious photo with the little sun bonnets!

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  14. I love the progression of blooming that you captured so well. Don't you just love being able to photograph these things? Then, after doing so, what do we do with all those photos?

    I think it is very important archive these photos, but it is an arduous task. I am only just getting started.

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  15. Cute photo of you and your sister!

    Yes, I remember people as I last saw them, too. I think most people probably do. I also noticed that, since I moved away from my hometown in 1999, that the people I used to sit and have coffee with at their homes...well, if they moved I had no background for them when we chatted on the phone or I was writing to them...like they were floating in space--LOL! I had to ask them to send me pictures of where they lived now. At least a picture of where they'd be sitting on the phone or writing a letter or on the computer...something! But when they are pen pals or blog friends and I've never been to their place then it doesn't bother me for some reason. Silly, eh?

    Love the daffodils!! And I do sometimes wish I would have had digital cameras and videos when Dagan was little. They are great! Along with computers...and cell phones...and DVDs...love them all! :):)

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  16. Having thousands of actual photos from a lifetime of taking pictures is something many of us confess to. When my brother cleared out my mother's apartment, he told me that her second bedroom was full of photos scattered all over as one of her hobbies was sorting them. So my brother kept some of the pictures and sent me a box of old photos to sort and share with my kids.

    I like the daffodil series. I have some bulbs coming up here so I should take some photos now and some when there are blooms.

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  17. On a trip to Appalachia next month, I may have the opportunity to have dinner with a friend I haven't seen since high school. I have no idea how that will turn out. Still, I'm willing.

    I have a box of my mother's old photos, too. She was careful to label the people, but many of them I don't know even with names! I think about dumping the box, but that seems wrong somehow.

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  18. I love my digital camera and take way too many pictures of everything. Flower close-ups are so fun - all that colour!
    I like looking at old photos too. I went through a stage in my late teens where I wouldn't let myself be in pictures. Too shy, I guess. Ironically it was the time (looking back) that I was my most youthful, vibrant, best....and there are very few pictures to show it.
    Now I have more pictures, but they documant the ravages of age and gravity. Wah!

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  19. Adorable old photo! I am thankful for the digital age too..I am waiting for a mega storage device the size of a key to keep all my photos forever..right now my backup storage works great! :)

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  20. I love the daffodil pix, the great one of two young sisters, and your header. I planted daffodil bulbs last fall but I think the squirrels dug them up and ate them. We shall see!

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  21. I agree about the pictures. Every now and then I think I'll have a big clear out, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I am mindful to the fact that my parents lovingly kept the few photos they had. They took them with pride and paid a lot (to them) to have them developed and I just can't bring myself to destroy the lives that they built up.
    The daffodils are gorgeous, aren't they and SO welcome after the winter time.

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  22. Interesting how the daffodils develop. I also wish that digital cameras were around a long time ago.
    I have a class mat who I write( She doesn't do computers) to once in awhile and exchange photos . but she always says in my mind you will always be 17 years old.

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  23. Great photo. We are very organized about old photos. Of my current family, I have everything in albums. I also have an album of me through my school years. Tom has spent a lot of time scanning old family photos and storing them in virtual files. He and some distant cousins are currently sharing photos via email as he gathers information on yet another family line.
    On the other hand, I have thousands of digital photos. Many are now on discs. Everything on the computer is backed up on the cloud, whatever that means, using Carbonite.
    I really should go through and cull the photos I currently have on the hard drive. I really don't need to keep three shots of the same thing.

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  24. I love black and white photos...and you two were adorable in your little straw hats!

    The same thing is happening here, and I have a clematis that I swear grew 6 inches yesterday.

    I love the magic of nature this time of year...but then I love magic anytime. lol

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  25. Dear DJan, what a wonderful photograph of you and Norma Jean. Those hats are such fun. I remember when all the women and female children bought Easter hats.
    At Mass on Easter Sunday, I'd spend time--while the priest delivered his homily--looking around, craning my neck to see all the new Easter hats with straw and ribbons and flowers. Your photo brought all that back. So much within a simply snapshot. Amazing. Peace.

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  26. Just yesterday, when I was talking with my sister about one of our nephews who seems to be elusive,...she is like you....she remembers him the last time she saw him...he was 5. Now in May, he'll be 40.

    And your daffodils?---I love those flowers.

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  27. Darn...Ps....I love the sweet sweet photo of you in pigtails. Darling.

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  28. I'm glad you did too.. and same goes for the one who took that adorable photo of you and your sister. Yes, I freeze faces, also. Even when I know someone is around the same age as my own kids, and mine are adults, I'm still shocked to learn that so and so is 20 something. Silly, eh?

    Lovely progressive photography of the daffodils. I'm stunned at how quickly mine have grown in just one week. I think the accelerated growth from this incredible summer-like warm spell will bring them from new sprouts to flowers in about 2 weeks.. possibly sooner. We'll have to see. :)

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  29. What a fun photo.

    My mom recently saw a friend she'd lost contact with for forty years. I asked my mom how it went and she said, "Wonderfully, but her hands looked so old, they look like mine. I still think of her as looking 18."

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  30. My sister sorted out the family photos some time ago after my mother died; she gave me a set.

    It wasn't until years later that I realized that she had given me the culls and out-takes and kept the best quality pictures for herself.

    Other events later transpired revealing to me that I was the less-deserving member of the family. My sister and I are now estranged. I have a difficult time looking at those old photographs now.

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  31. Oh yes... I really feel the same way about seeing people after a long time. Actually, every time I see my granddaughter, it feels like I been standing someplace while the world stood still while everybody else moved on.

    That photo of you and Norma Jean is so very precious. What gorgeous children!

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