I have a fascination for old photographs. I can’t help myself. For me, old photographs are a portal to a bygone era – a glimpse of life in another time, another world. Yesterday, I was waiting at the Dr.’s office and on the end table was self-published book documenting the life of Ken Ochs, who grew up in Russell, Kansas and later moved to Colorado Springs.

Liberally scattered throughout the pages, were a hundred or so photographs, each documenting some historical occurrence in Mr. Ochs’s life. Through these images, I gazed into the eyes of his siblings, parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren. For an instant, I was transported into the world of an immigrant farmer trying to carve out a life for himself and his family on the unforgiving land of the New World during World War One. I experienced the thrill of being on the trail with the Range Riders as they traveled around Pike’s Peak on their 1949 inaugural expedition. I witness the evolution of our city through the decades.

These images are a time capsule.  While they may be unexplainably interesting to me, I’m sure to Mr. Ochs and his family, they are priceless. I task you to go find the family album. Open it to any given page, and I’m willing to bet a flood of memories will spring forth. Memories of your childhood. Memories of your first crush. Memories of that insufferable family vacation you just couldn’t wait to end.

All this is a prelude the real point of my musing. Ms. Kalen Henderson wrote in the current issue of Professional Photographer about her observations of today’s generation. In my day, practically everyone had an album or shoebox filled with family snapshots. Today, however, not nearly so much. We take photos with our digital cameras and download the images to our hard drive. They are viewed once or twice on our computer screens, and then sentenced to solitary confinement, locked within the interiors of silicon chips. Perhaps more images than ever are taken every day with our cell phones. But where are those images? The lucky ones end up on Facebook to at least have a modicum chance of posterity. The rest, they die with the demise of the phone or device on which they are stored.

So here’s another challenge to you. I quote from Ms. Henderson, “It is the responsibility of every photographer, whether professional or hobbyist, to be a visual recorder of history.” Every photograph is a ration of antiquity, a millisecond slice of the world as it existed the moment you released the shutter. Have those images printed. Don’t let their fate depend on the fickle trends of technology evolution. Let’s not deny our children the privilege of browsing through the family album, and just for a moment, live in the world of yesteryear.

Inspiration taken from “Scatterin’s and Smatterin’s” © 1993, by Ken Ochs, and “Starting over: Memories of a lost generation”, Professional Photographer, January 2012.

I decided to step away from the studio yesterday and spend the day at Breckenridge. Breck is host to the “International Snow Sculpture Championships.” Sculpting and judging actually took place last week, but viewing of the finished artwork will go on through Feb. 4th, weather permitting. A couple of the sculptures already succumbed to the tepid temperatures, including the second place winner. Despite the premature demise of two creations, over a dozen sculptures still remain.

Of course I took some photo equipment along, but chose to “go lite” this time. I took two camera bodies with me, one fitted with a 50mm prime lens, and the other was my converted infrared with an 18-70mm kit lens. It wasn’t a particularly great day to shoot infrared, but as I don’t get the opportunity to use it often, I thought I’d give it a go. When the conditions are right, infrared can produce some really dramatic imagery unlike anything else.

The accompanying photo is a true infrared image. Limited post-production work was done, tweaking mainly for overall contrast, noise, and density. Please give me a shout if you would like to know more about this intriguing form of photography.

Dan Hagmaier