kodachrome

the paul simon song i knew by heart -- but the slide film was a mystery to me.
i was deep into black-and-white photography in the '70s, the mysteries of the darkroom, the magic of images appearing from the white photo paper like spirits from another world.
the smells, the machines, the hardware drew me into seeing the world's shades of gray.
so seeing the rich color of my husband's family's collection of slide films was a delicious shock.
the pictures his father had taken over the years -- birthdays, holidays, annual camping trips -- were not just well-composed; they looked as if they'd been shot yesterday.
it seemed impossible they'd frozen time so perfectly.
terry knew the images by heart, since part of his family's tradition was regular home movie nights, sometimes silent films with popcorn and ragtime music, other times they relived the past by watching slide shows of their younger selves.
to me, they were a revelation.
it wasn't just the scenes i loved so much, the forever-young faces. it was the whole story of what the pictures meant. one in particular i especially love. it's terry at 1 or so, at the beach with his young, beautiful parents.
he wrote about it today on his Tumblr blog, on which he records the images his own eye captures, and occasionally tells a story. today's was one i loved so much i had to repost.

http://thebonaventuretapes.tumblr.com/