Generations

It was one of those moments of family history that was too good to miss . . . a new baby in the family, and the opportunity to Blip four generations together for the very first time.
Centre stage is young Joshua, just five days old, being held by great grandma, Jill my wife.  Then there’s proud dad Sam and his mother Claire, who of course is Jill’s daughter.
We couldn’t wait for Sam and his wife Sammy, as the delighted new parents, to be able to bring baby Joshua out, so it was a momentous point in family life which we can never forget. And you’ve never seen such a clutch of iPhones all capturing variations of the same picture for the family album.
But do people keep albums of actual family photographs these days, or are all these pictures along with everything else, stored for posterity on a USB stick, computer memory, or in the clouds as computer storage is termed in these internet driven days.
I doubt I could ever find photographs of myself as a youngster  . . . I think the family camera my parents had was a box Brownie (Remember it?), and it certainly was not used with such impunity as we do with iPhones or any other mobile phone.
I can only remember one photograph of myself as a small child, and I am sure we still have it, but I doubt I could find it quickly.
No doubt about it, the world of digital photography has revolutionised our record of family occasions, yet somehow I miss being able to hold, see and feel an actual printed photograph in my hands. My own upbringing in photography saw a host of equipment, a blacked out kitchen or bathroom, plastic trays of chemicals, and running water, and often buying reels of 35mm film in bulk in an attempt to cut the cost of my hobby.
So thankfully, long gone are those days, and perhaps the age of photography is much easier to handle and understand.  Almost everyone has a camera in their pocket or handbag, and it is a simple matter to capture and record any happening that strikes you.

That was how this photograph of four generations came about, captured by myself  on Claire’s phone.  But while taking advantage of the marvels of modern photographic techniques to record the moment, it is also one for which I will want to hark back to my days of having printed and framed for the family mantelpiece.