Snapshots

I’m going to tell a little story on my mother, and I hope she doesn’t mind.

When I was little, we had some friends who lived right up the road from us. They had a son, Mark, who was three months younger than me. Mom was a photographer–she had gone to school for it. Every now and then, friends would ask her to take pictures at an event. Mark’s parents asked her to take pictures at one of his birthday parties (I think his second).

When the photos came back from the developer, there was a problem. Although there were dozens of images from the party, Mark himself was nowhere to be seen.

No picture of Mark covering his face with cake. No picture of him trying to figure out how to open a present.

Mom says, “He was in the background of a few pictures, I think…”

My mom took three rolls (remember rolls?) of film, just of me.

When I’m with my friends and their kids, I try to remember this story, and turn the camera away from my own kids a bit. I notice, for example, when we get through a whole morning of playing and I don’t get any pictures of Lil (she moves fast).

My friends have such beautiful children, it’s easy.

My mother adds the following clarification: “Ha Ha…well it certainly wasn’t that Mark was a beautiful baby… It was just that I was so smitten with mine…I only had eyes for you dear! It was truly an unconscious act. No one was more surprised than me…It was his FIRST birthday …Lorraine forgave me EVENTUALLY….but I never lived it down! Glad that at least my future generations learned from my mistake….Ahhhh The beauty of digital photography!”