[NuckingFutz]

Ie you can look through your families pictures, try this...look at the photos that are candid, random, not posed for. At look at them. Notice who is interacting with whom. Notice smiles or the lack of them. Are they real smiles. Who stands alone. Who is obviously absent in the photos. Who keeps their distance from whom that you have not noticed before. Who looks loopy, who is off by themselves. Who is smiling, who is not. A picture says a thousand words as you study the pics. It is very revealing. Pictures do not lie. Come back here and share what you can... And with your t too!

[lynn P.]

Yes you make a good point, they can be very revealing. The random shots are very revealing and even the posed for ones are - you know the ones where you have to paste on a smile when you're actually feeling awful?

[NuckingFutz]

Yeah those too! We have some family DVD's made and they are very telling. I noticed we all display a sense of humor as defense mechanism...ya I got it too! Could you guess? The latest group of photos is at my dad's birthday...a celebration. I wore a black dress and no smile. Had not noticed that until the pics were developed. I looked at my fathers face. After 2 strokes he was pretty much not there...sad. But it was a good party. Something for him to remember. As a kid I was shy, after the military no. The Army as theraputic...for me yeah! So how about you all?

[purple_fins]

Yes, photos and home movies can reveal so much.

All our family photos seem to be staged, where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera.

for me it was the DVD that an older brother had made for all of us kids. He gave all of us it for Christmas a couple years ago. I had such great validation from the DVD. For all my life I've argued with myself about feelings of rejection and that I shouldn't feel that way, that I'm just being ungreatful, that it wasn't THAT bad. then......

these movies from before my birth(I'm the youngest of a large family) to when I was a year old(that's when the movie taking stopped as my dad went full force into his addiction and the mother had her own mental illnesses) revealed much to me, I couldn't believe it. How i was left all alone on a blanket, as a golden sister got the limelight-- on EVERY film!!(my husband noticed this first) and the expression of terror/worry on my infant face when family members would come near me, looks like I'm about to cry every time.... it's hard to watch actually. (the family always called me "loser" and "boring" coz I didn't partake in things and was very withdrawn, I was never close or played with any of my siblings-- huh, still am withdrawn)

..... home movies have validated some of the deep feelings I have and the struggles I deal with everyday.

ugh... relationships..... closeness..... emotions..... those make me feel sick to my stomach........

thanks for posting this and allowing me to share, as I imagine others may find some answers in their photos/movies too.

was wondering........ what did YOU learn from your family photos?

fins

[lynn P.]

When I was growing up, pictures were few and far between. I think the reason was my father died when I was 2 and my mother had this deep sadness that was always lurking, hence she never felt enough gumption to smile for real to take a picture.

As an adult now - most photos are staged smile photos(where my eyes look nervous but I'm smiling) except the ones where I'm just with my kids - I feel these are natural relaxed shots.

[purple_fins]

Oh Lynn, your mom must have been so sad. it must have been hard for her.

fins

[radio_flyer]

Interesting thread. I remember taking pictures to "group therapy". Someone mentioned that nobody was smiling in any of the pictures. I never noticed until it was brought to my attention. Might have just been a "bad" day for everyone when the pics were taken. I don't know. Maybe there were lots of bad days for picture taking. My dad was a photographer so he enjoyed taking pics.

I don't really remember a lot when younger. Pictures with no smiles might mean we were not a smiley family? Or we all hated our pictures taken? I sort of lost all my pictures in one of my many "moves".. So I could be wrong about not many smiles in family pictures.

So if pictures can tell a story, not sure what my story is.. shrugs shoulders

anyway great thread... got me thinking, which isn't always good. haha

[splitimage]

One thing that always strikes me about family photos is how much booze there is always in them, like in the background. I have one picture of me playing with a barbie doll in the foreground and my parents are at the kitchen table, and there's the gallon jug of wine at my dad's feet. Or another candid shot of my father waving his arms around arguing - he did that a lot & the table is absolutely covered with bottles of booze. It's just like it was always there, and I never noticed it growing up - I just thought it was normal.

Guess there's a reason lots of my cousins and I are now in recovery.

--splitimage