Reflecting on Pictures

This morning when Audrey, my fabulous travel agent, asked me if it was okay to share this blog with people she knows, I was flattered.

Driving home, I got to thinking why I write this blog. One appeal-to-everyone reason is I am uncomfortable posting on the open Internet when I am away from home and this blog allows my family and close friends to be aware of what I'm doing without me standing on a mountain-top blasting it all over the entire digital planet. However, my big personal reason is I like taking pictures but I can't stand when they sit around in cameras or in files or (back in the day) in boxes or drawers. Blogging allows me to share my photographic efforts, then erase the ones I didn't use. I force myself to review and choose images, making me consider the impact of each picture by telling the story behind it. The stories are almost as important as the images.

I have always believed photographs resonate. Tangible echoes of times past, they freeze-frame moments of reality.

August 1984. University of Florida commencement. I walk across the stage before a few thousand cheering and applauding parents and graduates.  Caught up in the celebratory atmosphere, they were not there for me, but I smile anyway as the official camera catches me shaking the University president’s hand as he hands me my MA diploma.

Off-stage, I relinquish my regalia and exit the O-Dome, threading my way through clusters of people waiting to greet their graduates. I’m almost at the parking lot heading for my Pinto, when laughing voices register on my consciousness. Disbelieving, I spin to see my younger sisters Ellen and Emily holding a bottle of champagne, three plastic glasses and my infant niece, Kathleen.

"What the Hell? What the HELL!?" 

"We could not allow you to graduate alone. So here we are.  KP and I picked up Em, and we headed south on 95."

We put Ellen’s camera on a bench, set the timer and captured the toast. (Kathleen is there sitting on Ellen's lap.)

This picture is on my fireplace mantle. It is a screensaver on my MacBook. It is wallpaper on my iPad.  In all its re-creations, it is an image I cherish.

We're young. We're happy. We're drinking champagne. My sisters drove 700 miles in August heat in a car with a broken air conditioner, a temperamental radio and a months old infant so I could celebrate with family.

Even today, 32 years later, this picture still resonates for me: echoing joy, love sacrifice and real sisterhood.