About 20 years ago I was visiting my parents at my childhood home. There was a party. It might have been a birthday party for one of my parents. I don’t recall. But I do recall having a drunken conversation with one of the neighbors. We got to wondering how many kids — we’re talking boomers — had grown up on the street. We started counting and naming names. We came up with 75.
What sorts of things occurred on that street in the 60s and 70s for those 75 kids?
I was learning photography in those years and would point my little Instamatic at almost anything. A few of those images survive. But I missed an opportunity that I had no idea even was an opportunity — to document life on that street in that time. I had no idea there would, or even could, be publishing opportunities for such work. I had no idea anyone might ever care.
Today we have the World Wide Web and social media to create space for anything we care to document. The lesson is to start now. Just do it. It doesn’t matter if whatever it is seems trivial or unimportant. Fifty years from now two drunk guys at a party may wish to stroll memory lane. Your work could make that easier.
