ABSTRACT
A black and white photograph with a hand-written date on the back is tucked away in an envelope, in a box, in the garage. It has its value and like most valuable things it is hidden from sight. It is bad because it breaks with the polite conventions of child portraiture and it breaks with the idealism of family snaps. Blurred and badly composed, the light is poor and the sky is falling down. The grey sea dominating the photograph has few noteworthy features beyond its bleak expanse. The photograph is taken somewhere by the sea, somewhere in the United Kingdom. Photographs of children can become sentimentalized and nostalgic. Pictures of oneself as a child are more usually melancholic. The common knowledge is that photographs of children depict the instability and vulnerability of childhood. They also expose the own mortal fragility. Unlike a mirror image, the photograph reflects what 'was' rather than what 'is'.
