Thunder rolled and lightning flashed outside my bedroom window. Time to try taking a picture using lightning. Standing in front of my second-story screened bedroom window, I waited for the next long flash of light. As the explosion rolled across the valley, peering through the view finder, I snapped one shot. That’s all I dared to try – even as an 11 year-old I understood the expense of processing film.
I came across that black and white picture recently. The grid of the screen obstructs the view but the trees and valley stand out. A bland photo, but I kept it as a reminder of the day I discovered lightning worked like the biggest flash bulb ever.
In high school, my interest in photography focused on my mother’s pile of family and school pictures. After organizing albums during our grade school years, she had fallen behind. I sorted and stacked up school photos and candid shots. Organizing them by years, individuals and events, I fixed black corner photo tabs to hold them on manila colored scrapbook pages. Sequential years of five little Hibbards dressed in their Sunday best for picture day at school finally had a resting place. Except for occasional input, my mother and sisters left me to my absorption with completing the scrapbook.
Once finished, I reverently turned the pages over and over in wonder, studying how we grew as individuals and as a family. After I went off to college, the passion for photographic organization snagged my sisters’ attention and they put in their own stints sorting and preparing photo albums for Mom.
Last week, my daughter proved she had inherited the same gene.
After a year of digital photography and uploading the pictures to an online photography website; after I had pointed out various sales on digitally generated photo albums, she decided to create an album of this year’s pictures.
In the years B.C. (before children) she lovingly put together a number of elaborate scrapbooks – lengthy handwritten descriptions accompany the hand cropped and enhanced pictures. She maintained a stock of scrapbook supplies.
But, with two babies plus those she baby-sat in her home, she discovered the efficiency of online photo albums with their scrapbook backgrounds, varied layouts, print fonts and photo edges.
One more sale ending soon on photo books nudged her to forget sleep for a couple nights to create an album. “And, Mom, would you would look at it after I finish it?” she asked.
Having just asked the same favor of her and my husband last month for my own photo albums, I could hardly tell her I was too busy to look over her book.
She quit around midnight. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, thought about a day of work and her request. I decided to take a peek at the book so I could tell her it looked wonderful.
She had done over 90 pages of photos with cutlines.
There was no way I could just take a quick look.
After looking at several pages and trying several alternate lay-outs, I realized my tastes might not suit her. I saved the book as a new book under a new name and began working my way through the pages enlarging pictures, moving around cutlines, trying different layouts for emphasis.
As the sun rose, the clock screamed time to go to work. I quickly skimmed over the last couple dozen pages, wrote her an e-mail with suggestions, reluctantly closed the file and dashed out the door.
She called me later to ask, “What time did you get up and look at that book?”
“Early, very early. I saved it as a new book so you could see my ideas. It’s okay if you prefer something else.”
Somehow between babies napping and playing, she snagged a few more hours to work on the book. Her husband looked it over and approved it. With discounts and shipping, she told him the final cost would equal around seven or eight cents per picture.
No time spent monopolizing the dining room table, yet still she prepared a photo album to be cherished for years to come.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)