I've seen ghosts

I know what I like in photography, and why.

When I was five or six years old my grandmother would let me pull all her photo albums out from her bottom dresser drawer, and I would carry them into the living room and sit on the floor in front of the TV and search for my favorites.

My favorites, I understand now, were the ones that frightened me a little, especially the black and white snap shots of departed relatives.

Grandmother would say,

"That's my mother in 1945 just before she passed away...She would have loved you very much. That's the same rocking chair that's in your room now, see? Same one. We've never had to recover it. She is your great-grandmother. Here is your great-grandfather, my father. He died in 1958, when your great uncle Barry was going into the service."

There was one color photo of him.

The next favorite picture was of my grandmother herself, in 1956, wearing a bright red ball gown and pearls, I believe. 1956. Ages ago, in 1967. She looked much younger, and wasn't wearing her glasses. The color of the snap-shot was almost garish. It was old but seemed to be from "my time", only before I was born.

See, with the color snapshots, I had this sensation always that I'd just been asleep, and had missed out, or even been cheated of a lot of years. How many episodes of My Three Sons had I missed? Or, The Wonderful World Of Disney? My older brothers were way out ahead of me, they knew and remembered the original, oldest son in M.T.Sons, who disappeared without explanation, I believe.

The black and whites didn't do that for me. Those people were dead, and I was dead, and there was no hope whatsoever. We had photographs of great, great, ever so greats who were in the Civil War (both sides). Grandmother didn't say anything like, "And they would have loved you." I don't think she believed they'd be fond of her either. Too distant. We both puzzled why no one smiled, not knowing that it was because of the long exposures needed. She might have said it had something to do with dignity. I presumed "Hard Times".

Anyway, I guess my favorite types of photographs are bad snap shots, with color. And particular color from the period (I'm guessing) 1948 to 1961 (I was born, or woke up!) in 1961. I have a trained eye for the brummagem and can usually i.d. old movies by their color type, also. 1948 in unmistakable, for instance. See Hitchcock's "Rope". The colors in "Rope" are out of my grandmother's color photo album, the reds are her party dress. The late 40's color was very rich.

Anyway, now I have discovered how to make a dull photo BAD, with MS Paint, or "Picture It 9". This one of K.B., Chance, and the pup (if you can make her out, in K.B.'s arms) is in my room, around the ten o'clock news hour.

It's grainier, actually more like my dad-gone's polaroids, except those were always too light for me.

BTW, look how we poor people live. Pretty good, eh? Especially considering those hues, eh what? And the media.