When I was a little kid i liked to go through my grandma's old pictures and photo albums. I used to look at the black and white pictures for hours, in most of them i was recognizing my grandparents, who were so young and beautiful, looking at me and smiling from the pictures. Back then it was just a game for me, a fun activity and nothing more.Days ago i was at my grandparents' house again and i decided to look through those old pictures, just like i used to do as a kid. But i couldn't even imagine how much i was going to see, how many new things i would notice, things that were not important for that little girl who was looking at those pictures so often and not even realizing how much history this albums are keeping inside them.
I was turning the pages and each picture seemed brighter then the one before it. There were so many colours in those black and white photos. I was looking at the people, some of them i knew, some i didn't, but they all looked so kind and honest. If they were smiling, they were smiling with their heart, just because they wanted to and not because the camera was around.I was comparing those photos to the pictures we take today. The modern pictures are full of colours, different effects and styles. With the help of the simple programs you can change your picture the way you want. But i noticed that something very important is missing in the modern photos, something that i noticed in that old photo album, that's the honesty, the reality. Have you noticed that almost in all your pictures you either smile or pose the way you want to be captured in the image? And later when you look at that pictures they seem so fake. The idea of capturing a moment in a photo, saving a specific second, is lost.
Now we save the time the way we want it to be. While looking at the old pictures, I could see a story, a reality that was now talking to me, telling me those people's lives and stories, i could see their thoughts and feelings captured in the pictures. It seemed like nobody even new that someone was taking a picture of them, all the photos looked like a movie scene and that movie was their own life.Sometimes i wonder if i noticed all these when i was a little kid, enjoying the old images in my grandma's photo albums. I don't know, maybe i didn't think of it in this way, but i'm sure that there was something more in the old pictures that made me look through them over and over again...
Closing the album i had a feeling like i had just finished a good book, one of those books that you want to reread again, right after finishing it, which leaves a mark in your mind and keeps going through your head time to time. And it was true, cause i closed the book about my grandmother's life, about her childhood dreams, her school adventures, her first love and marriage, her hopes and memories...
That old photo album was one of the best books I've ever read in my life.
© LiLit Ghazaryan