snapshot (noun) a photograph that is “shot” spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent
People take alot more snapshots now than probably at any time in history, hundreds of millions of them every year…well in between selfies. Most either end up forgotten on a phone or disk drive…or accidentally erased. We can’t keep up with them all forever.
And that’s a shame, because the best thing about snapshots is that they freeze a moment in time and space…and allow us to look at them again and again. Deep down, that’s what we all crave anyway…to freeze that time and that feeling…to hold on a little longer.
This is one of my favorite pictures. It’s a picture of my grandmother…my mema…from sometime in the 1950s while visiting Silver Springs, Florida. Silver Springs is famous for it’s crystal clear water, and the glass bottom boats that allow you to see all the way to the bottom of the springs and the river it feeds.
I love the glasses she’s wearing. The straw in the Coke she’s drinking. The boardwalk that is rolling out there behind her, towards the shelter where you board the glass bottom boats. The woman in the bathing suit striding up behind her. The men on the benches. The palm trees…and a sign for Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute, a forgotten piece of Florida that doesn’t even exist anymore, where Ross Allen wrestled alligators and snakes for tourists, then taught them something about them and their habitat.
In 65 years…I wonder what my kids and grandkids favorite snapshot will be. Will it be the picture of us all at Itchetucknee? Or will it be the picture we took at the beach? Or maybe it will be someplace else we haven’t been yet…