Wedding Album

Dear J-

The album is the ubiquitous photo storage tool. Analogs exist in every computer, whether it’s an online photo site or something as prosaic as the humble folder; the good ones mimic physical albums and the really great ones go a step beyond, giving you a tool to index photos by content and date (this is why I prefer flickr: the tagging system). Back to the album, though; more often than not the album would have a window in the cover to insert another photograph, some thumbnail sketch representative of the content within. For those of us too cheap to splash out on double prints back in the day (guilty), you had the dilemma of finding a photo to go into the album cover and yet not able to use that photo later in the album itself. This is partly why I have embraced the digital trend wholeheartedly; digital copies are free and cheap.

The concept of a summary photograph is somewhat strange; perhaps a contact sheet would be more helpful, but abstractly, the photograph is a slice in time, and the summary photograph is one which you’re asking to represent the whole album, whether it represents the events of a day, or a year, or a life. What do you pick as that photo? Why? The why is more interesting than the what, and probably more consistent. Perhaps it’s signature moment that stands bold in your memory, or perhaps it’s your favorite cousin; maybe it’s something funny, but it’s always unique to the person putting that album together.

Case in point: last night’s wedding, with the hordes of people; I spent a good portion of the night alternating between lamenting the loss of what felt like my right hand — the E-1 — and chasing after figgy, who wanted to ascend the dais to the head table, or run around under the waiters’ feet, or break into the chocolate that was left on each plate as favors. All the while, she would want to be either held or shielded from strangers. And yet as the night wore on and we greeted more and more of my relatives with hugs she would start to throw her arms wide for a hug of her own. This was capped off by the bride and groom’s entrance, set to clapping and stomping; once they were seated figgy made her way up to the front and, unprompted, opened wide to hug the bride. Yeah. Signature moment for me.

Mike

Tags: album, bride, figgy, memory, photo, signature moment, wedding