Because my house is full of framed family photographs on the walls I do lots of remembering when I look at them. Last night I had a new thought about how these family portraits appear in my head when I think about them.

Here are two portraits of Rosemary. The one in Veracruz  with our young daughter Alexandra I shot in late 1968. The one of Rosemary alone is a Polaroid I took when we moved into Canada to live in Burnaby in 1975.

The latter portrait I took without giving it much thought and put it in a box. It was only a couple of years ago when I found it in that box that I realized that it was a special portrait of Rosemary showing her unwavering stability and grace. I love it.

The Veracruz portrait brings me more than an observation of when I took it. It fills my head with the smell of the port’s humidity. I can remember the wind of the Norte and I how I liked walking with Rosemary, hand in hand, in that malecón (Spanish for seaside sidewalk). I can remember going back to my mother’s home and telling her how much fun we had had on that concrete bench. It was only a few days later when we returned to Mexico City and I processed the film did I found out that I had a keeper and that I had lucked out with the hair.

Could it be that some memories are static and some are some version of a video complete with sound and smells?