All this yammering about airport security scans has reminded me how much we owe to the art and science of photography.
Thank GOODNESS for 
photography! It is an historical record, a
proof statement of what actually happened or what something or someone
actually looked like. How would we know if an artist had filtered the
image of their subject? 'Improved' it, perhaps, or altered reality to
better suit the artist's sensibility. But with a photograph... there's
the photograph, there it is, look at it! It will tell you a story if you
know which questions to ask. And beside the historical and scientific
uses, a good photo is a genealogist's treasure! Tips and leads can pop
out of every corner.
Remarkably,
photography has been around less that 200 years. Imagine if there were
honest-to-goodness images of (insert chosen historical character here). I had always pictured
(whomever) as blonde, or taller, or more dignified. Why, such facts
could change the course of history. But that is not to be because the
earliest known photograph is an eight hour exposure out the window of
the Frenchman Joseph
Nicéphore Niépce. It may not be stirring, but that's what it looked
like in 1826. Napoleon had only been dead for five years. Thomas Jefferson was still alive. And Abraham Lincoln was seventeen years old!
Now, Lincoln! 
Lincoln, we've got! We
have lots of photos of Lincoln. You couldn't CAST a better face to
emote dignity and courage and honesty and forthrightness. Stephen
Spielberg has been agonizing over casting Lincoln for more than ten
years and everyone had thought he had settled on Liam Neeson, but NO,
it's going to be Daniel Day Lewis!
Spielberg and Long Carbine!
Now there's a movie I would go to see. Bill the Butcher is already in
Illinois, scoping out history on Lincoln, probably immersing himself as
he always does, building himself a log cabin. I can't wait to hear his
chosen accent.
That does it, I've been toying with the idea of
getting a bust of Lincoln for my office, I'd better hurry up and order
it before Daniel Plainview orders them all for his research. I feel
close to Lincoln, he married one of my relatives. Yes, he had failings,
too.
Speaking
of the things you learn from genealogically-oriented photos, check out
this one of me when I was three years old. There's a lot to learn here.
We were living in Miami and we were 'poor', shoes were still a few years
away. But beside the idiotic grin on my face, check out my hands. Are
they deformed? They appear larger than my feet, were they run over by a
car or something? Are they flat? Perhaps that's a grimace on my face and
not a grin.
Love the 'lawn', by the way, but that's my original
premise coming back to visit. The lawn (and my fingers) look the way
they do in the photograph because that's the way they actually looked.
Nowadays,
I suppose I could use some fancy tools and cover up that patch in my
overalls (hmm, I should GET some overalls, they look pretty comfy) or put some shoes on my feet or make my hands look normal. But, nah! I wasn't normal then and that's the way I'm staying.
2 comments:
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Leah Kleylein said...
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so now I picture Lincoln with the heavy Bill the Butcher accent!! Can't wait!!
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Dave said...
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These days people actually buy clothes that look like the picture here. You were ahead of your time.
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