wings and wonky gold tinsel halo); my dad holding my little hand while pointing out trinkets on a skinny, virulently-coloured, tinsel-festooned Christmas tree that I've always remembered as being huge, sumptuous and beyond beautiful; me a bit later on with pudding-bowl haircut, National Health-issue dark brown specs and Clothkit dungarees…. And so they go on.

For many years I had only the smallest handful of photographs from my childhood. There are years and years of my life, places I have been, rooms and houses that I've lived in, friends I've loved and possessions that meant so much to me at the time but of which I have few visual records.

My memories are distanced by the years and, with only a scattering of pictures to jog my recollections, I know the power that images have to conjure up flashbacks. Without photographs to prompt me, to trigger the subconscious, many of my memories are flawed at best, minimal at worst.

My sons laughed till they cried seeing these pictures, while at the same time spotting themselves in photos of me. My youngest is still convinced that the school portrait of me aged five is in fact his older brother in a dress. (Yup, sadly I can see the similarity.) For me though, looking at these photos brought the memories flooding back. So many things I had forgotten; so much of my history wrapped up in those album pages. So much of what made me Me.

Then I was given some long-forgotten family photo albums. Pictures of me as a baby, my young, good-looking dad holding me with such pride; my first birthday party hosted by a dear family friend, complete with pineapple-chunks-’n-cheese on cocktail sticks and a jam sponge; me clutching my beloved Pink Bunny, shockingly pinker and fluffier than I remember him; me sitting uncertainly on the bed in my Big Girl bedroom with a newborn baby brother balanced precariously on my chubby lap; the same fat, blonde two-year-old brother on a blue tricycle in summer, wearing a homemade fancy dress angel costume (pillowcase tunic, silver foil coat-hanger

Photographs connect us to our past; they’re evocative and textural and emotional and take you back to specific moments. They remind us of people, places, feelings and stories. They can help us to know who we are. And to know that we loved and were loved in return.

When my first child was born, I immediately started to amass a million-plus pictures of him: on my phone, my iPad, my camera.

For me, for him, for his children and for his children's children.

To laugh at, to enjoy, to trigger both his and my memories as the years go on.

By the time Son Number Two appeared four years later I knew I wanted to leave a photographic legacy,

not just for me and my kids, but also for other parents and children.

The thing is, we all have cameras on our phones and we all take a million-billion-trillion pictures of our loved ones on a fairly regular basis.

We post them to social media, we briefly turn them into screensavers, we sometimes even stick them on a Christmas card and send them to distant relatives.

What we don't do though is print them, frame them, enjoy and relish them, or archive them for the future in a beautiful bespoke album.

THE PROUST

QUESTIONNAIRE

07825 737519

studio@claudialucyphotography.com