Taking Pictures is Making Memories

In my last article I discussed a little about written documentation. An important part of a museum’s collection, written documents can give us a firsthand account of what was happening, who was where, etc at a specific point in time. Another good snapshot of the time, literally, is photographs. People have been recording their perceptions of the world for the longest time, from cave drawings to classical sculptures to Renaissance paintings. With the invention of photography, however, people could create an image more quickly and didn’t necessarily need to be a talented artist in order to capture the world around them. What’s especially great, from a museological standpoint, is that a photograph can be art and/or documentation. For example one of the photographs on display here at the Museum is from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection and depicts 35 people of varying ages standing/sitting in front of an early ranch of the area.

Thelma Webber had this photograph posted in her Museum and had an accompanying label: Friends and relatives for Christmas dinner. While this may not seem all that important, I mean, who doesn’t have a group picture from a Christmas of the past, Thelma’s family was one of the pioneer families of the area, so this picture is an important documentation record of who was here. While she didn’t date the picture she did list the people in the photograph and some of them she labeled as so and so’s father or so and so’s grandmother. Between those labels and other records we could estimate a date as to when this photograph was taken. Again, thanks to Thelma’s great record-keeping we have a fantastic picture of who was in this area on this early Christmas.

Because of the equipment, chemicals, and time involved in early photography, not many people could participate in the photography phenomenon, but with the invention of film by George Eastman in 1889, people didn’t have to carry around their own personal dark rooms, in fact they just had to take pictures and then send in the entire camera or eventually just the film and have someone else develop it so it became more accessible to the masses. Photography has become even more accessible with digital photography. Don’t be afraid to capture the history happening in the world around you, you don’t have to be an artist to take pictures. You never know what or who you will want to remember and you never know, one of your photographs could become a museum piece like the one of Thelma’s family on display at the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame.