The first Photograph

 

Well, I am at least 99% sure that this must be the first photograph I ever took. The year was 1952, the place was Perth, Scotland. My Mother and I had gone on holiday to see Dad, who was in Scotland doing survey work for the Ordnance Survey. That's them outside their tent - my tent was on the left.

I am pretty sure that I must have been the photographer, because there were only the three of us there, and the height at which the camera was being held seems to be that of a young child. Mum is looking proud, Father somewhat anxious about the camera. Clearly, I had yet to learn about taking pictures without things growing out of people's heads! This, though, must have been the start of a life-long affair with cameras.

Now, seventy-four years later, I carry two memories of that trip: The first was lying in bed at night and listening to the night train whistling in the distance as it went south to London. The second was playing in the tent with the new, yellow, Dinky-toy bulldozer that I got for my fourth birthday. It's surprising which memories stay and which fade; there is a photograph of me with "Bovril" the heifer, but I have no memory of the encounter, nor of actually taking this picture of Mum and Dad.

This picture is, of course, a digital reproduction of a physical photograph, from an actual album. I know that because I and my memories are part of the provenance for the image. I wonder, though, in a world where AI can reproduce an image from any era, with any subject, what value one can now place on any digital image, or even a print from a digital image, as being a representation of reality? It's all too easy today to create any digital 'reality' you like.  Perhaps I should take much greater care of my analogue negatives; one day a strip of Ilford XP2 may be the only proof of truth.