Shutter Sisters

Capturing a place in time

By

I´m spending some time at home in Brazil, and believe it or not, even though it all feels really familiar to me, I´m still feeling nostalgic towards the life I left here over 15 years ago. Things have changed a lot since then. The streets and beaches are more crowded now, the open fields gave in to more buildings, small business were bought by coorporations… Isn´t it like that everywhere anyway? Don´t take me wrong, Brazil is still as vibrant as ever. (No matter what happens, there is always going to be samba playing and a wild force driving everyone and everything here.) But as I try to trace my steps along a path that has long faded, I keep thinking that I wish I had taken more pictures back then. Don´t we always shoot away and then inevitably, still wish that we had more pictures? Especially those images that tell our story and show us where we have been. We can never have enought of those…

So today I invite you to be your own memory catcher. We usually focus on special moments, but today, let´s capture and share places. Show us where you are and how you want to remember it 15, 20 years from now.

Comments

  2. I do not have a photo of today, but I wanted to share how this post touched me. The notion of a place in time, the image you chose, and your story deeply resonated and, though I am shying away from the camera as the not religious foreigner in a place where Saturday is sacred, I am full of memories and thoughts. Thank you.

  3. Loved this post, I am a Brazilian living abroad too & I miss so much the places that have changed beyond recognition. But you're right, we have to capture today's moments. I'll work on them.

  4. when I was younger I would travel with my Dad to his ancestral home of Italy. Years later when I went back as an adult, I would always get this feeling of being a stranger in a familiar place – the best way I could describe it – things had changed just enough. I was just recently in California, hadn't been there in at least 10 yrs. this time around with camera in hand (and tweens in tow) sort of gave me a similar feeling. Although CA hasn't changed that much, maybe it was more a case of me seeing with different eyes?
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurohunt/5497208448/

  6. What a soft and beautiful image! We are living once again in a place we spent so much time in back in the late 60's, 70's and we are always saying that we wish we had taken tons of photos back then! There have been alot of changes but we are just so happy to be here to see them!

  8. I love the post. I loved the phrase "I should have taken more photos back then". It was one thing I always heard my dad say.

    I think I blame this as the reason I never stop taking pictures, no matter where I am…I rarely think I should have taken more pictures and as a self proclaimed master of the self portrait I'm never lacking the memories of us at a certain time and place…not just vacations, but day to day life as well.

    This picture, though not today, it is where we spend most of our summer…in a vintage metal box that was my dad's. It's the one thing I know will be gone at one point…someday a newer shinier model will take it's place.

    While the actual place varies trip to trip, the home remains the same. When I look back I want to remember the stem to stern orange shag carpet and smile.

    http://winnipegweddingphotographybycoral.blogspot.com/2011/03/moment-in-time.html

  9. This should be interesting to you, because it's great minds running in the same groove:
    http://kattsby.com/2011/03/05/harnosand-the-town-i-grew-up-in/

    Kattsby is writing about the small town she grew up in Sweden; your two stories side by side are fascinating to me. And photographs are really important in both accounts — but hers especially because she has almost none.
    (Your photo is different from my imaginings of what Brazil looks like.)

  11. It's still winter here in Oakland, California and most of the trees are still leafless but so many flowers are in bloom already. I don't think I could live anyplace with a snowy winter that lacked color for so long. My heart would ache too much…

  15. i am home today dog sitting so not outside but this was from a few days ago.
    http://stampmousephoto.blogspot.com/2011/03/rainbow.html

    i love where I live well maybe not so much in the winter but on mild winters like we normally have. looking forward to spring and better outdoor weather to get out and take more pictures.

    i have started to add a few photos to my flickr site that are about my hometown
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/9745749@N03/sets/72157625190364251/with/5500926149/

  18. I am facing a move on four months, from Italy back to Oregon. I'm trying to capture as much as I can, but I also know that it will never be enough. You just can't capture everything you see, feel, taste, experience with a photograph. Yet we continue to try. Here is my special place near our home, the park I walk in often. As many pictures as I take, I will never have enough come July when I move home.
    http://www.kateyeview.com/2011/02/sunrise-sky.html

  19. I've been doing this two ways this year – I have a blog that is matching photos to randomly selected words. I'm using it to tell stories from my life.

    I'm also taking pictures every day. I haven't yet edited them down to select one a day, but it is my life. During the week, I work downtown, so many of my pictures are the buildings, roads, reflections, and other things. Weekends is the dogs, my yard, and adventures with my husband. It's really helping me record my life in real time.

    Nancy
    http://dogear6.wordpress.com/