There is so much to be said for how we feel at any given moment in time. Sometimes it is ever so easy to conjure up memories, feelings, a feeling, that goes with those moments.
Sometimes these moments are special and sometimes they are ordinary moments. Photography is a beautiful way to capture special and ordinary for posterity. Of all the things I enjoy doing when I have a spare moment, scrolling through my different sets of photographs to remember my moments is a bit of photographic nostalgia. I like that, a lot.
I am so easily transported to those moments - many of which had slipped my mind for a bit - and I feel what I was thinking, what I felt. What was going on in my life. Sometimes I remember happiness, sometimes sadness, but I always feel something.
I am a highly visual person and can recall moments in my mind, but photographs are different. Especially when I have taken them myself. Because. I. Lived. That. Moment. That. I. Captured.
The moments after I bought my first digital camera back in 2004, this is what I did (aside from forget to remove the date stamp during all the new-camera excitement that is...):
Some of these photos have been optimised but have had no other alterations (hence I haven't cut the date stamp from the originals).
I remember walking through Oxford on a beautiful crisp and sunny day. Oxford often had blue skies and sunshine, even if it was a little crispy cool. I remember heading to the Radcliffe for our dendrochronology lab where we climbed the outside of the building with questionably rickety scaffolding. At first two of us stayed behind (out of 6) but then one of the boys came back to get us, though only I was persuaded because I really did want to conquer the climb and learn the work and take in what I knew would be a perfect view on a perfect day! Needless to say, happy new camera reminds me and show others how perfect the view was! There would never be another opportunity like that for me, and I knew that.
The green grassy view reminds me that the set of the Harry Potter film was located in various places around town at one point, somewhat shrouded in secrecy but not totally. I loved pretending not to be interested as I tried to sneak a peek!
When I look at the images of the bridge, I remember the Queen and Prince Philip driving across that bridge in the centre of town one day. My one and only meeting (in passing) with the Queen!
It was easy to take photographs of Oxford, and of England in general, because it has a landscape that I both feel connected to through my history, and love because of its history. As an archaeological scientist and archaeologist by education, this is a most perfect place to focus my lens. I only wish I had afforded the time and money to investigate and document more.
In time; Everything in its time.
TT&E feeling more than a little nostalgic...happy remembering to you too!
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