The Ageing Process

I was tidying up today (a rare lapse) and came across an old travel pass from a trip to Amsterdam in August 1991. I'm something of a hoarder but one thing I don't keep is photographs, so apart from the photo of me on this site I don't have anything that documents me growing up. Or, indeed, photos of friends and family.

That seems to be quite rare in this day and age.



I used to take loads of photos, but it was actually on this trip that I made a decision not to do it anymore, partly because I was desperate not to appear like a tourist, but also because I realised if I spent all my time looking for photo opportunities, then taking the damn things, I'd never be enjoying the experience of being there for myself.

Roland Barthes talks about photos distorting the memory rather than aiding it - a concept I was unaware of at the time but which sums up how I explained my decision to people. When you look at a photo you close off so many memories because only those captured in the photo seem to matter.

But looking at this photograph of me, taken on a sunny day in an Amsterdam suburb, near the old Olympic Stadium, all sorts of memories flood back. Not just of the holiday - my first ever solo trip abroad to stay with friends - but of all that was going on in my life at the time. It's quite a powerful experience, and all stemming from that one photo. Distorted memories? Maybe.
I seem to flit from remembering my first real girlfriend, who was off studying in France for six months, my friends back in Yorkshire, my first job and how little I liked it, my hopes for the future and - bizarrely - a conversation I had with a Dutch guy about Macromind Director and the future of multimedia.

Not only that but the obvious one - I look so young. When you're 20 you think you know it all. I wonder if I'll look back in another 13 years time and laugh at myself as I am now?