People would probably expect a picture of myself or of my girls, or even the family but, not unlike Hot Cross Mum, as a rule, I do not want to put pictures of the girls on my blog (or even myself, wouldn't want to scare readers away now, would we!). The amount of pictures I have of the girls and the family would put Helmut Newton to shame (well at least in quantity, not so sure about the quality though).
My dad is photo mad. We are not talking mobile phone photo, we're talking proper photo, no digital cameras or automatic zooms or gizmos like these. Proper photo as in films (choose from colour or black and white), as in different lenses, as in coloured filters, as in around 1000 photos for a one week holiday in Italy. I remember some fair few years ago, when he used to turn the bathroom into his own dark room. You were either in from beginning till end or you were out from beginning till end. I remember him changing the light bulbs to those red ones, so that the pictures would develop correctly and blocking all light coming in from the window (funnily enough the only one in the whole house that doesn't have shutters). The equipment was put up. The his and hers sinks and the bidet (yes, we do have one of those, although never used for its intended purpose but rather to wash smelly feet and babies, not in the same water though), were filled with various chemicals. A line was put up over the bath to hang up the developed pictures. My mum had no interest and my brother was too small to stay around all those chemicals, so I would sometimes be allowed in to help (or get under his feet). I used to love that uninterrupted time I got to spend on my own with my dad, just watching him and discovering his beautiful pictures. As a child, it felt like such a long time without being able to open the door, in reality, I don't know how long it could have been. Maybe an hour or two at the most probably.
For his birthday last year, we offered him a gadget that allows him to transfer all of his negatives and slides (which are gathering dust in a press and get taken out just about once every 5 years) to his computer. He is retiring next year and this promises to be taking much of his time (that and playing golf of course). So I probably will have to wait for a similar meme to come around again sometime next year to pay a better tribute to his beautiful photographs.
In the meantime, this is the picture that graced my work computer for years. It is my mum and dad's back garden on a frosty morning. It reminds me of home and those childhood's winter mornings.
I would now like to pass the torch to another 5 fabulous bloggers and I can't wait to see what their favourite photo is:
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
X
Foodie Mummy.
ah that was lovely
ReplyDeleteil get around to doing my one soon xx