Awhile ago I discovered an old slide taken at a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game years earlier. I didn’t remember much about it.
I knew I’d taken it in May 1978—a memorable time in my life. I was on my way to Germany for a university student work program. It was my first trip on an airplane, and my first time in Toronto.
I also recalled that the Montreal Canadiens had defeated the Boston Bruins on that day to win the Stanley Cup. From this fact, I figured out online that the game had been May 25, 1978—a Thursday. A baseball reference website told me all the details. The player at bat was Tom Hutton (#14) and the player on deck was Otto Velez (#19). The Boston Red Sox defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 9-5, with relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley getting the win. The game was held at the old Exhibition Stadium, a venue that was also the field for the Toronto Argonauts football team. The attendance at the game was 17, 197 for the fledgling Jays, who were struggling through their second season.
I’ve found Google Maps Streetview to be another valuable resource for finding the exact location of old photos. There is a sense of satisfaction in piecing together old memories. It helps me remember more details of a photo, or an event. How did I get to the game, who did I go with, what did I do afterwards?
It’s impossible to go back in time, but often it is possible to reconstruct the details of a photo. This can be a worthwhile endeavor as the past recedes further in the distance. Not every day will be one you’ll care to return to in memory; not every ball game is one you would want to sit through again. There are plenty of elements of our past lives that are better left in the past. But, for those memories that are a pleasure to recall, using photo sleuthing to retrieve forgotten bits of the day can add greatly to the texture of a treasured memory.
I have always thought of black and white photography as an abstract medium and colour photography as a psychological medium. American photographer Elliott Erwitt said, “With colour you describe; with black and white you interpret.” If it’s true that colour appeals to our emotions and leaves less to our imagination, then it makes sense for us to be judicious in using it.
This can have a lot to do with how the photo is framed—how much of a particular colour, or colours to leave in or crop out. When I view a scene, then, I look for ways to combine colours–for me, it’s about balance. Sometimes a tiny splash of red is enough to counteract a sea of green, or a little orange goes well with a lot of blue. There are no hard and fast rules here, but the conscious combining of colour is something to keep in mind when you’re out taking photos.
On Instagram there are dozens of filters to choose from, each giving the image a certain look, but it seems the most-used Instagram filter is “normal”–that is, roughly the colours our eye sees. And that’s good news for an old-school guy (like me!) who believes that colour is something to be observed, not added with a filter.
Editing photographs takes time and patience. You’ll probably follow different strategies, depending on whether you’re working on an assignment, an exhibition, or a scrapbook. I’ve found it helpful to let some time pass before making choices. That could be a few days, months, or years. It’s important to try to lessen the emotional attachment to an image and see it as objectively as possible.
On his blog, American photographer Eric Kim tells a story of photographer O.C. Garza, who said, about a class he took with master street photographer Gary Winogrand, “He never developed film right after shooting it. He deliberately waited a year or two, so he would have virtually no memory of the act of taking an individual photograph. This, he claimed, made it easier for him to approach his contact sheets more critically. Winogrand said, ‘If I was in a good mood when I was shooting one day, then developed the film right away,’ he told us, ‘I might choose a picture because I remember how good I felt when I took it, not necessarily because it was a great shot.’” (To be clear on how meta this is: I’m quoting Kim quoting Garza, who’s quoting Winogrand. Four layers of photographers finding this a useful insight!)
The photo at the top of this blog post is perhaps a solid example of letting time pass in editing: It was taken in Little Italy in Toronto in 1983, and scanned some 33 years later. I didn’t think it was a worthy photo when I took it, but I do now. Time has given me a different perspective on the photo. Part of the reason is that I’m a better photo editor now than I was in my twenties.
In these days of social media, it seems to be a lot about instant gratification–how many likes a photo received that was taken just five minutes ago. Resisting the urge to post things immediately is sometimes difficult but rewarding.
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St. Clair West, Toronto, 1983 is from the series: Toronto Days
I have always enjoyed looking at old photos—newspaper clippings or photo albums from my past or other peoples’ past. There is a kind of comfort in it—a chance to connect with the old days, to see and experience history without going there.
Throwback Thursday, with hashtag #tbt, has been a phenomenon since 2011 with people posting or reposting older photographs on social media. It turns out that Throwback Thursday has a positive psychological impact. Colleen Leahey writes in Fortune, “Sharing old photos is a fun way to remember the good ol’ days, but it may also help people counteract feeling alone. A 2008 study published in Psychological Science found that nostalgia alleviates feelings of social exclusion.” The study’s authors wrote, “The past, when appropriately harnessed, can strengthen psychological resistance to the vicissitudes of life.”
So that’s a good reason to post and view those old photos of bell bottoms, and peace signs; or Pokemon, and flash mobs.
