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Reflections

by Katie Butler Johnson

hen we moved to Fairview in 1987, we stored several Picture taking has changed dramatically since those days. We’ve
old cardboard cartons in the far corner of our attic. gone from analogue to digital. Today we whip out iPhones to
WThose boxes stayed there - taped shut - for over 32 capture full color snippets of our everyday life.
years. I thought they each contained outdated periodicals and Photography always fascinated my friend Kay Griffith. With
old financial records. five children at home and a job in finance, she had no time to
Over the years, both our attic and garage had filled with “stuff.” pursue it. But, she knew there would be time when she retired.
Those old cartons got hidden behind subsequent boxes and As she began to think about her eventual retirement, she started to
forgotten. prepare for it by taking photography classes at Richland College.
This past September, my son Clay and his wife volunteered to Kay stood out at Richland in the 60’s - the only senior citizen in
clean both the garage and the attic, separating the contents into a class of youths aspiring to be the next Ansel Adams. She took
“keep, donate and toss.” all the photography classes
Clay ordered a dumpster and Richland offered; went on
the purge began. photoshoots and field trips;
I wasn’t to help for fear joined the Heard Nature
I’d “second guess” their Photography Club; displayed
decisions. her photographs at artist
galleries and showcases;
Towards the end of the sold many pictures; and won
process, Clay came and told many awards.
me: “There’s something you
should see.” One of those We spend years in school
cartons was labeled “packed preparing for the first part
in 1969.” It held files of old of our lives, but how many
letters, news clippings and of us spend time preparing
a moisture damaged photo for that second chapter? It
album. That album was may last as long or longer
filled with Polaroid pictures than the first did. Kay had
of Claiborne and my first the foresight to prepare
year together – pictures of herself for her retirement.
us at the Grand Canyon And today, at 88, she is, as
on our 1961 cross-country Joseph Campbell would say,
honeymoon, of our new “following her bliss.”
friends at UC Berkeley and As for that damaged photo
our firstborn, Beth. The album, I treasure it. it holds
pictures were stuck to their images of who I was and
plastic covering which may what my life was like over a
be why the album was packed away – too damaged to display half-century ago. What advice would I give my 21year self as
but too precious to toss. I don’t remember that album or how she looks up at me from that album? I’d tell her life can be like a
it got damaged. I do remember our Polaroid Camera. It was a roller coaster. Hang on and enjoy your ride.•
wedding gift. We’d used it to capture the moments in time that
album holds.
Edwin Land invented the Polaroid Camera in 1944. He always Katie Butler Johnson
said he got his idea from his three-year old daughter. She’d asked has written a beautiful
him why she couldn’t see the picture he’d just taken of her right children's book, Amazing
away. That sent him on the quest to create a camera so she could. Things Came to Be, with
Land had dropped out of Harvard to set up a research operation proceeds going to various
in a Cambridge garage. (Sounds like Steve Jobs and Apple.) charities. Illustrations by
From that beginning, he went on to build his Polaroid business
into a billion-dollar company. Amanda E. Wallace. Find it
The first consumer Polaroid Camera was sold at Boston’s Jordan on Amazon today!
Marsh for Christmas 1948. It promised to deliver a “picture in
a minute.” Remember Steve Allen’s TV ads for those cameras
in the 50s?

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