Too Many Family Photos
@arthurchappell (44998)
Preston, England
January 2, 2016 5:15am CST
It is quite nice to have a few family photos on display around the house and the workplace office, but I find many people saturate the house with them to the point of enshrinement. Every portrait looks like a cruel Dorian Grey mirror, a still frame of a past never to be recaptured.
It is worse when the photos are of family members still present and looking similar to their images. The photo memento of something still on-going seems a distortion of the reality itself.
I think of stalkers filling every wall surface and scrap book with archive souvenirs of their desired victims, leaving little room for more general art and artefacts. It actually annoys me.
My sister lives a few streets away but frequently bombards my Mum with nicely framed photos of herself and her growing brood, which my Mum feels duty bound to display on the walls and mantelpieces. It turns every room into a family museum. I’m in just two images there – my graduation photo and a childhood image of me with my sister as we stroked a lion cub at a holiday hotel in Spain in 1978. I don't mind seeing a few images of myself but I'm glad I'm not staring back at myself from everywhere.
There are several images of my deceased step-father with my living mum, but not one photo of my long dead father, virtually written out of the overall picture, but I hate the growing shrine in itself. It starts to look creepy.
Arthur Chappell
12 people like this
12 responses
@celticeagle (166912)
• Boise, Idaho
2 Jan 16
I enjoy pictures of kids in stages as they grow up. I saved each of my daughter's school pics. I am not much of a picture hound but enjoy looking over the old ones of the kids.
2 people like this
@MarshaMusselman (38865)
• Midland, Michigan
29 Sep 17
Your mum could certainly replace the older pictures with the newer ones if your sister thinks updated ones are that necessary. Over here, many families send updated photos with their christmas cards, but most of us don't display them like that. Some put them into picture albums or maybe scan them to store on their computers or in the cloud. But, I'm sure there are many that do as I do and store them in boxes to be taken care of at a later date.
I didn't realize until looking over other comments that this was an old post. It was in the sidebar and I should have realized that, but guess I didn't.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
29 Sep 17
@MarshaMusselman it is good that older posts still get attention too - I just find over-use of family photos narcisistic and don't get me started on Selfies
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
30 Sep 17
@MarshaMusselman it is always best to entrust the camera to others
@MarshaMusselman (38865)
• Midland, Michigan
30 Sep 17
@arthurchappell I got my first inexpensive smart phone this summer, about June and have only taken two selfies. I don't like the angle of them and probably won't do many of them if any at all. Plus, I chipped my front teeth back last November when I fainted at work and selfies brings those right to the fore-front. I'll probably stick to having someone take my photos of myself if I want more.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
2 Jan 16
I think it's nice to have a place and the swap out the photos now and then
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
3 Jan 16
yes changing them is nice from time to time
1 person likes this
@Shyamalaa (525)
• Udaipur, India
4 Jan 16
Most of our photos are in digital form. I have an old computer which I use like a digital photo frame and the pictures are shuffled and displayed like a slide show. I like such display because you get to see many photos that you would otherwise not see. Other than this,we have very few photographs displayed on walls.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
5 Jan 16
My mum has a digital photo screen though I get fed up of watching the same images scroll round again and again - she only added about twenty photos to it though it could take hundreds
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
2 Jan 16
yes, they mean more then and stand out more - the bulk of photos can go in albums or online storage / Pinterest/ facebook allbums, etc
1 person likes this
@Missmwngi (12915)
• Nairobi, Kenya
2 Jan 16
@arthurchappell Yeah,as long as they are somewhere and not all over the wall
1 person likes this
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
2 Jan 16
I like having photos around of family members I see sparingly during the year. And not just *any* photos, but ones I really love. My hall is a little black and white shrine to vintage family members who are {mostly} no longer with us.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
2 Jan 16
A few select images looks fine - it's wall to wall saturation I find leaves me cringing
@scheng1 (24649)
• Singapore
2 Jan 16
If your sister always frames up the pictures of her family, I think her Facebook must have contained several thousands pictures.
I wonder what is the purpose of having so many pictures.
It just makes it easy for criminals to target the family.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
2 Jan 16
yes it can be a risk as so many images gives out a lot of information - think my sister does it more to manipulate my mum's feelings towards her by trying to be more present for my mum than me though I live in the same house as my mum. The photos are a dig at me in many ways
@poehere (15123)
• French Polynesia
3 Jan 16
Personally I don't do this at all. I basically have one photo of my dad because he is no longer with me and one photos in a double frame of my two grand kids playing soccer. I hate to have a lot of images and photos all over the place. I think it is way too much. I would rather have them in a photo frame and let it play when you want to see them. Before I would leave it playing and now I don't even do this.
1 person likes this
@Morleyhunt (21744)
• Canada
2 Jan 16
We have a wall with five photographs....our children. Rather than adding to the wall we have asked our children to give us an updated picture of their families to replace the 20 year old graduation photo.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
2 Jan 16
@Morleyhunt that is a sensible practical approach
1 person likes this
