Eric Thayer/Reuters
A resident found photos as she sifted the debris of a house destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in Union Beach, N.J.
I WASN’T going to write about Hurricane Sandy. I was going to write about the changing nature of photographs and our relationship to them in this digital age.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Picture-taking is now mainly digital, making prints of photos uncommon.
But as I began my research, I came across a Facebook page where lost photos from the storm were posted. Called “Union Beach — Photos and Misplaced Items,” the page shows photos of newborns and birthday parties, weddings and family gatherings.
Starting the morning after the storm devastated her community of Union Beach, N.J., Jeanette Van Houten and her niece have collected over a thousand photos and some photo albums. She is making it her mission to scan and post to Facebook as many as possible, including those turned into the fire department, police station and borough hall.
In addition, she was handed a drawerful of over a thousand family photos that must have been wrenched from a dresser.
About 60 photos have been claimed so far, and some professionals have offered to restore damaged photos free.
“These photos were passed down through families and they survived Sandy, even if the structures they were in didn’t,” Ms. Van Houten said. “They tell our story.”
With the Facebook page, Ms. Van Houten uses newer technology to help people reconnect with their old-fashioned snapshots. And seeing the photographs of mundane scenes and milestones on Facebook, along with the grateful comments from people who got back a bit of their lives, reminded me of both the fragility and strength of photos and their continuing importance in our lives. Judith Dupré, author of “Monuments: America’s History in Art and Memory” (Random House, 2007), and other books, teaches a class at her local library in Mamaroneck, N.Y., called “Stories from My Life,” for older residents. They use photos and stories to write about their lives.
“They bring in a basketful of photos,” Ms. Dupré said. “Each one of these photos contains a story — they’re like a key that opens the door to a life.”
And a printed photo “is a different species than a digital photo,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s figured out the place of digital photos in terms of memory keeping.”
When an elderly aunt of hers died and left behind lots of photographs, Ms. Dupré said the family took them to the memorial service.
“We had a table and people could select and take what they wanted,” she said. “It was a very moving part of the memorial.”
Of course, even prints can lose their meaning and poignancy through the generations.
And in some cases, as with Hurricane Sandy, photos may be safer in cyberspace than in an album on a bookshelf — as long as you remember to upload them to a site like Flickr, Shutterfly, Snapfish or countless other photo sites available. (And make sure you know how long a site will keep your photos. Some, for example, require you to show some activity at least once a year.) That way, if you lose your hard drive, you don’t lose your photos.
But Ms. Dupré said she worried that photos that existed only online somewhere might die with the photographer.
“I don’t even know what my parents have in terms of digital photography,” she said. She said she put the password to her photos safely away with her will and other documents, so her children can access them.
Now I’m not trying to say that the old-fashioned way is the only way. Photography has constantly evolved. The Brownie camera, first sold by Kodak for $1 in 1900, radicalized photography by making it available to just about everyone.
But, and I know this largely a generational thing, I can’t help but wonder about the ubiquity of the cellphone photo. As Ms. Dupré said, “The infinite number of digital photos that can be taken has devalued the single image and made one-of-a-kind prints that much more precious.”
Shortcuts: The Meaning in a Drawer Full of Old Family Snapshots
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Shortcuts: The Meaning in a Drawer Full of Old Family Snapshots
