This Is Where It All Started

I’ve been away from my 642 Things to Write About book for too long! But alas, tonight I have returned to it, and so, I present you with today’s Thing.

The eleventh topic is: Tell a complete stranger about a beloved family tradition.

My answer:

First, you have to know my mom. When I was growing up, she was always there with a camera. To capture every moment. And then to fabricate some more to capture, when the regular fam was just not interesting enough. There were poses. The every 5 years you take a picture in the same spot pose, the first day of school pose (every September) and the whole family with their hands on the police car to look like they’re being arrested pose. Wait, what? Yes. That was a pose in my family. Now, as my mom fabricated some pictures to make what might have been a boring day look like a really eventful one, I have been known to fabricate memories. So, we have no way of knowing whether or not this happened as much as my mind says it did. But anyway. Let’s go through the process.

So, we travelled a lot when I was a kid, and with travelling comes new customs, new rules and… new police cars? I guess my mom was really into different countries’ cop cars: how they looked, what side the steering wheel was on, you know, the stuff that interests tourists. I don’t know why she was so interested in them, none of us kids nor she or my dad have ever been arrested (as far as I know…) so I’m not sure where this fascination came from. Either way, it was there. And we had to accept the tradition: if there was a police car, there was going to be a photo. No questions asked. Everything we said could be and was used against us at dinner.

Anyway, we would have to pose with all of us, hands against the car in an altogether awkward stance. So, to prove this happened at least once, I found an example:

I don’t think any of us other than my mom were ever happy about these specific poses. You can see by our strained smiles (mine is fourth from the left, complimenting my striped tights) that we’re all just feeling weird. But you know, it was family. It was strange, and people were staring, and the cop was probably wanting to get into his car, but it was my family, and looking back, I’m proud of this excruciatingly awkward tradition.

So, years later when I am a criminal famous for exploiting family traditions through photography, you might visit my Wikipedia page and see this picture, with the caption, “This is where it all started.”

RJ

Sources:

Bronson, Po. 642 Things to Write About. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2011. Print.

Just Do What You Want (And Of Course, Photograph It)

Hi there:)

A photo I took, called “Shadows on the Wall:”

I took this picture last summer in the middle of the night behind a government building, with my family. It was awesome because we’re a super PG group of people, and we were just loving how our shadows looked on the fence – we were doing slow motion stage combat, shadow puppets, the classics. Too fun. Then suddenly this light shot out at us; it was a security guard with a really bright flashlight. He ran over, yelling, “Hey! What are you guys doing back there?” And we’re like… “Um… shadow puppets?” He just started to laugh, either because he thought it was obvious we were lying or because he thought we were exceptionally pathetic compared to the hooligans that usually hang out behind government buildings. Anyway, totally okay with it.

So, a general photography tip: embrace your PG-ness, and don’t hide it in your pictures. You don’t have to do anything crazy or performance-art-ish or illegal (though that can be awesome too – I’ll post about pictures in illegal places in the future, I promise) and you don’t have to give up on a subject just because someone else has done something weirder with it in the past. Just do what you want and take a picture of it.

RJ

Among the Streets of My Memory, There is A Row of Colourful Houses

When I was little, I went somewhere. I can’t remember where. I have a picture in my head of colourful houses, though. My family drove a long way to see them. We wanted to see these colourful houses. I can’t be sure if this was a dream.

Anyway, I put the picture on paper, in my lovely oil pastels. It’s funny, I meant for it to come out realistic, but it ended up looking pretty childish, a little scribbly and 2D. And I love it. Maybe I remember it like a drawing from one of my old picture books. It’s funny how that happens, memories change to fit the era you were in. And you don’t even know it until you put it on paper.

Colourful Houses that Live Somewhere in My Memory:

RJ