When you look at this photograph of an unidentified family group taken sometime around 1930, it makes you wonder what’s the occasion. Perhaps a new car, or a family gathering, or friends visiting.
When I was young and visited my grandparents, we would look through the family photograph albums. While I can’t remember being very interested in the very stern looking people in the formal portraits, I really liked the camping photos and the ponies. Grandma would entertain with stories the photographs evoked and explain the circumstances.
It was not until I was much older that I appreciated the time that was put into naming the people, places and events.
As a curator this raises a couple of questions for me.
What happens to albums and photograph collections when people downsize their house or clear out a home? Some go to family members, some are tossed out or lost and some are offered as donations to a local archive.
And what about preservation of today’s photos? Not many of us print photographs now — we share them on social media and in electronic photobooks. How are these going to be accessible to future generations? Will the children of 2122 be able to look back at a photo of great grandma and her new Tesla electric car or wonder at why everyone was wearing a mask in the supermarket?
Wherever the albums and collections end up, identifying the people and where and when a picture was taken tells a story for the future and can bring to life stories and events that might otherwise have been forgotten.
Capturing and preserving the visual memories of our past for future generations is important. If you have photographs that you treasure, whether printed or electronic, now is the time to clearly label them with the "who, where and when". Do it while the memory is fresh.
At the Waitaki Museum andArchive we have a large collection of photographs. Many are unidentified. It would be great to think that future generations coming into the archive or looking through an electronic photo book at home could easily identify family members or where Aunty Flo used to live.
To view our online collection of photographs go to https://collection.culturewaitaki.org.nz/explore, and add a comment if you recognise anything or anyone.
Elly Dunckley is curator of archives at Waitaki Museum and Archive.
