Who? What? Where? When? Why? My parents' wedding photo. Who? Netta and Albert. Where? London.
I wrote in small capital letters on the back margin: my mother's married name, her maiden name, and her date of birth, and date of death. That was in the year 2000. Now, in 2020, twenty years later, I have trouble remembering the date my mother was born and the date she died.
Those photo labels at the time were easy to write, when my father was alive. Which year did they get married? The date is in a book I self-published of my family history.
My father's box of photos mostly had no captions. He did not tell me much detail. He said about some of them, 'That was last year.' Others were labelled, that was 'France', or that was 'Venice'.
"Who were these people?" I asked my father.
"Those were our neighbours. ... A couple we met on holiday. ... Auntie Sarah." And so on.
When I finished, I went through the photos, again. I was able to add dates to places, and places to dates.
Sometimes I was able to pair up the pictures using landmarks. The picture of a church, 'I don't know where' was my father's comment on the background to a photo of my parents. In another picture I found a French signpost. France, Belgium, Switzerland or Canada or some French-speaking island?
Label Your Own Photos
When I left my father's flat and went home, I started the same exercise again with my own photos. I had tutted disapprovingly over the fact that my father had not labelled his own wedding photo. Of course, he knew it was himself and his wife and the year they married and where.
But my own photos of my wedding were not labelled! For the same reason.
At the time of my wedding to my husband, in the 1970s, both sets of parents shown in the group photos were alive. Now all four are gone. When I pass on, and the photos are passed on, my descendants will be trying to work out which woman was my mother and which was my husband's mother.
If you label your own photos with even only the most basic information, the name of the family members, the year, the country, that can trigger memories.
Why bother labelling the country? While you are all living in the same country, your country and your home town is obvious. Five years later, when you move house to another city, or go to work overseas, or emigrate, the identity of those old photos is less clear.
You might be able to check on dates with other sources such as who went where and when. A photo taken of South America has to be my husband's because I have not been there.
'Where?' I called.
He just told me, 'Argentina.'
'Which city?'
'Cordoba.'
Which year?
'1976. No 1978. I was invited to the World Cup of Soccer. I had written a paper on football attendance when I was a lecturer in statistics at Aberdeen university.'
I can check on the dates of the World Cup in Argentina to be sure which year.
But a photo of Mexico was my trip on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. My husband has never been to Mexico.
Signposts Opening Sets Of Photos
Nowadays I include the welcome sign as we drive into a city. I take a photo of the airport on arrival with the sign. I photograph signposts.
Romantic Road sign, Germany.
Self-captioning Photos
I often take self-captioning photos. I include the name of the hotel with a picture of the outside.
Why use labels?
When I worked for a photo agency, we were instructed to write on labels and stick the photos on the back. Never write on the middle of the back of a photo, because the indentation of the pen or pencil would impact the front of the photo.
Now you can use your grouped photos for a blog on your travels, or a printed book.
Storage Systems
I visited the head of a photographic society in New Zealand. He had a simple dating system. He kept all photos in date order in numbered shoe boxes. January 1999 was followed by February 1999. To find photos of particular places, he used books of indexes. He kept one book in date order. The other was by country and City, alphabetically by country and within that alphabetically by city.
So his page on France, Paris, might have an entry: France, Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, exterior, June 1999.
Another later entry would read: France, Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, interior, altar, 2002.
He could use this system to pair up photos at different dates, his first photo of a place fifty years ago with the same place last year or this year.
Each photo had a number. It helps if you make notes of what you have photographed every evening on a trip.
Mystery Photo
I have a mystery photo of a wedding taken in what looks like a back garden in the East End of London. Was it from my mother's family, or from my aunty Pearl? If only they had written the bride's first name, I could have checked back in the family history and found the bride, the groom, and maybe many more people, and the location where they lived.
You could use a similar system with family photos. You can compile a family history.
I used a stock photo on the front of this book for the 90th birthday of my relative Pearl.
I prefer the family photo I used on this book of family history, which I wrote for my neighbours.
Alice and Loudon
About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.) See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts, Quick Quotations, Who Said What When. Also watch videos on YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment