MODERN WOMEN

Since Einstein discovered that Time is not absolute, some scientists believe that it is possible to travel back and forth in Time. For us regular folks however the only way to travel in time is backwards through our memory. But our memory is often playing tricks on us. It changes the roles we played in the past or it downright falsifies that past. Stories about ourselves told  to us  when we were young sooner or later develop into real memories.And even the things we witness today  will be changed and adapted in the future. So much for truth. The only things that remain as witnesses of times past are the things that surround us, silent and often overlooked. Of these things photographs are among the most real. They  present another reality. They are evidence. Everything we see- and don't see-in a photograph was once there in front of a camera: a  person looked at, a landscape looked upon, a button pushed and a person pushing it. When people had themselves photographed they could present themselves to the others: look at me, this is who I am. When they started  making their own photographs things changed however. Now everybody had the chance to picture the remarkable in a highly personal way. Their photographs took on meaning that was  understandable only for a very few: parents and grandparents, children, aunts, uncles and maybe some very good friends. And as soon as these pictures leave the familyalbum this meaning is lost.  All they do is speak of a true but unrecognizable past.

Some snapshots, as these photographs are called, take on a  new meaning however. Found on fleamarkets or garagesales they are selected for their historical value, or just their beauty or because they are very odd. Brought together in a collection they  tell their stories in a new and different way. They are looked upon by different eyes, categorized , maybe even catalogued. Snapshot always seemed a lousy term for what was undoubtedly made with great effort. Camera's and glassplates were expensive and so was developing and printing. Even the famous Kodakboxes with their rollfilm were made for the well-to-do-market. So people didn't go around snapping like crazy. Every shot was planned, considered and reconsidered before the button was pushed and someone else did the rest. Take a look at any familyalbum from the 20th Century and wonder why so many hazy, unsharp and crooked photographs were so laboriously tacked onto the pages: it often was the best the photo- grapher could do and there certainly wasn't any money to try for a better picture. And anyway, grandma was in it and that's what counted. That's probably why you see so many people in these pictures: apart from the new car, the new house, they were the most important. They had to be captured for later, to be remembered. Timetravellers all of them. Next time you look at a snapshot don't pick out the beautiful or the odd one. Pick out the bland or the plain ordinary. Look at it over and over again and you will discover  it will develop new meaning. For your eyes only.