I love love love looking through old photos. When I go over to my Mum’s I’ll often ask her to get the photo albums out, it’s lovely, we can look at the photos and remember family members sadly no longer with us, pets, days out, the Christmases, birthdays, special events, and  holidays.

I can look at photos of our holiday in Hayling Island and remember the fun we had there. I can look at the photo of me, my sister and my two cousins when we entered a talent competition. I’m not actually how much talent was involved. We sang a song called, “My names Diana Dors and I’m a movie star” we even practised a little routine to it. Perhaps my recollection of the event is better because every now and again I can look at the photo. Strangely I was talking to my cousin about it last year and she had no recall of the event at all. None whatsoever. Perhaps it was a memory she didn’t want to keep so she decided to pack it away in some deep part of her brains for it never to resurface. To be honest it was probably a bit cringe-worthy!! Anyway my sister and I tried to convince her it happened, to no avail, so I stuck the picture on Facebook, which then triggered the memory and gave us all a bit of a laugh and led to a bit of reminiscing.

My lovely Gran very sadly passed away ten years ago. She did reach the very good age of ninety three, but her last few years were cruelly affected by dementia. She found it very difficult to remember even every day things. When I used to visit, I used to get out a different photo album each time. We would look through the photos and she would remember. We would look at photos of her and her husband – my lovely grandad who she lost when he was only fifty seven, that’s such a dreadfully young age to lose your life isn’t it ☹️ we would look at photos of holidays, us when we were young, her when she was younger and bring back all sorts of happy memories. And do you know what? She remembered those days out, those holidays and snippets of her life, this triggered other memories that would have remained a black hole if we hadn’t revisited them.

I love looking at photos of my own children. They are both in their twenties now and haven’t liked me taking photos of them in ages, but I still have the ones of them as babies, toddlers, young children, days out in the park, birthdays etc to look back on fondly and remember.  It’s nice too to have proper photos, rather that just on my phone, because although I do look back through my phone photos, it’s just not quite the same…

You’re probably wondering what the point of this post is.

Selfies.

Who on earth decided it was a good idea for people to take selfies? I’m talking about just selfies not selfies taken in a special place or at a special moment. Of course I absolutely understand that if you are out somewhere amazing or on a trip to the London Eye or something then it’s great to mark it with a photo. It’s especially great if you are with your partner or family or a bunch of mates and there is nobody else around to take the photo, you can then look back and remember that amazing time.

I take selfies too, I take quite a few – BUT the only reason I have taken quite a lot is because I genuinely am the least photogenic person you are likely to ever meet in your life. I am constantly trying to get just one decent photo to stick on my Twitter or Facebook. Just so people I know can see what I look like. Err actually people I know do know what I look like. I do prefer to have a photo of me on Twitter because I think it’s more personal and people can see who they are talking to. Although occasionally if I have a wobble with my confidence I will swap this for either my blog logo or a photo of one of my pets.

Really I shouldn’t give a shit what the photo of me looks like though should I? Because it’s me. I do though and that is down to my own insecurities, which I guess I need to get over, hopefully one day I will.

The one thing that I don’t understand and that puzzles me is, why do people pout when they take selfies? That’s a genuine question. Sometimes I misunderstand things and find it hard to get a joke so I would really love someone to let me know what I’m missing here.

Those poor people, when they are old and grey and decide to share photos with their own kids of their memories are going to become a bit unstuck.

“Oh look there’s me being moody in my bedroom…..Oh look there’s me looking moody in my car…..Oh look I’m in a mood in my bedroom again.”You get the picture?

I was inspired to write about selfies and photos after looking at and commenting on a photo Kerry posted on Instagram.  Kerry is amazing, I love the way she writes.  You can find her blog here and it is so worth reading!  Kerry life and loves.