I have this thing for photograph….. just in case this little detail about me has slipped by you.  It is true.  I am completely fascinated with them.

These days, I am not sure people think about them too much, one way or the other.  We are so inundated with information, digital media, and social networks… that seeing a photograph seems inconsequential for most people.

But I see a photo, and it is like a piece of perception…..  from a Time Machine.  One that has traveled to some other neverland.  And this two-dimensional image is what we have…. as proof of the venture.

In that moment, in that space in time, in this universe, that never was before…. and never will come again… is that photograph.  Those faces looking back at the camera lens, will never be the same again, as they were in that moment.  And all those moments, from all world, and all over the universe, bring us to this very moment right now.  And here we talking about them.

You would think I’d be terribly rebellious against the photograph.  From the time I popped out of the womb and said… “What on God’s green earth just happened to me?  That was one heck of a tight squeeze getting out of that place!”…. I was met with Paparazzi Lucy.  My dear Mom Lucy.  She was relentless in her “picture taking” and as kids, we resented it.

Now….. as an adult….even though there are nearly 100 photo albums compiled by Snappy Lucy…. it does not seem like enough to me now.  I want to see more.  I want proof of that Time Machine Journey.

I want to see more of my Grandma K and me.  I want to see what the screens in the house looked like after my brother painted them.  I want to see a really good photo of my baby feet.  And I want to have a glimpse of our brand new puppy when I was five. ….. OH WAIT.   We weren’t allowed to have a dog.  I was totally getting carried away with my “want” list.

But I digress.  Photos.  I collect them.  If I see an intriguing photograph on Ebay,  I buy it.  And then I wonder.

The photograph I posted tonight are people which I have never met.  But I KNOW they were there.  I have proof.  And I can see them in that moment.   The one point in time…. which never was before, and never will be again.  Dutch and Freda are seated.  Dutch’s real name is Dietrik Kaufman, and he used to be a Jeweler in Germany.  Now, here in Northern Ohio, he is a farmer.  His wife, Freda, is a strong woman.  Her father owned a thriving vineyard in Germany.  Both families were very well-to-do.  They have come to the U.S. to escape religious persecution.    Their two sons, Heinrich and Georg are good boys, and very bright.  Musically gifted. Yes, both are skilled violinists.  Oh, I could go on and on about them.  How they met Fr. Theodore Reinhold in Philadelphia.  He was the one to tell them about the land they would find, cheap, near a town in Ohio called Spencerville.

But I’ll stop, because I don’t know if any of those stories about them are true or not.  I’ll never know.   But there they are.  In my hand.  At this point in time in the universe. Never before.  Never again.

And that is what amazes me about a photograph.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.  —  Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lost time is never found again.  —  Benjamin Franklin