Photos are like time machines.

Photographs ©Michael Raymond 2007

A photograph is like a time machine, transporting us to a different moment and a specific place.

People in the photo are forever young and live forever in their encapsulated world. They may have grown up, moved out of our lives, or passed on but for that brief moment that we look at the picture, a reunion happens that may well be impossible any other way.

Places are revisited, sometimes raised up from the ashes. Even those who do not know the folks depicted might see something, perhaps an article in the background, to spark an old memory.

“I had one of those,” or “That looks like my first car”, or “my dog when I was a kid”.

Long forgotten ways of life, family gatherings, great school chums are captured forever by the camera lens. We see new things on subsequent view that were missed in the first glance.

Open fields, distant buildings, once loved pets that were not the subject of the shot are there nonetheless to spark a smile and a fond memory.

Next time you point your camera, ponder the immensity of the thing you are about to create. Don’t leave home without it.