These days, taking a family picture is as easy as saying cheese. Someone whips out a cellphone, shouts for everyone to squeeze into the frame, taps the screen and, within seconds, the job is done.
If someone blinks, no problem. Take another one. If the lighting is bad, there are filters. If you don’t like how you look, delete it and start again.
But back in the day, photography was a craft, and every family had its trusted photographer. In our case, ours was an elderly relative whom, even when I was young, I remember as already being old. ONaVinch called him umalume, and naturally, to the rest of us, he was khulu.
When it was time to capture a family picture, the family would agree on a special day when khulu would be invited over. Once the date was set, everyone knew what was expected: dress to the nines.
Sunday-best clothes would come out, shoes would be polished, hair would be sorted, and everyone would make an effort to look their absolute best.
Although, when I look back at some of the outfits we wore, I sometimes wonder whether we truly understood what dressing to the nines meant. Some of those clothes deserve a separate family meeting and possibly an independent investigation, but anyways it was the fashion then.
When khulu arrived with his huge camera, the real business began. He would arrange us into different poses, with some seated in front and others standing behind.
As far as I can remember, there were no individual shots. Everything was about the family as a unit.
We would strike one pose, wait for instructions, adjust ourselves and try another. Sometimes we would also have a change of clothes, especially for us kids. After the change of clothes, we would return and repeat more or less the same poses in different outfits.
By the time the exercise ended, you would think khulu had captured enough material to produce an album thick enough to stop a door from closing.
But here is where the mystery begins.
After all that drama, all those outfit changes and hours of posing, khulu would eventually deliver the pictures esewagezisile.
Five.
Yes, you read that correctly. Five pictures.
How could a whole day of photography produce only five shots? Where had the rest gone? Had the camera refused to cooperate? Was film expensive? Had some failed to come out? Or was khulu simply a man who believed in quality over quantity?
We were too young to interrogate him. Besides, when khulu delivered your pictures, you accepted them with gratitude. Nobody was going to demand a refund or ask for the unedited versions.
You took what you got and thanked him.
Years later, when I look at those few surviving photographs, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I am grateful that we have something to remind us of those days, the people we were and the moments we shared.
Some faces take us back to people and times we can never recreate.
On the other hand, haaaa! Some of those shots are embarrassing!
The outfits, the poses, the facial expressions! You would swear some of us had been summoned before a commission of inquiry rather than invited to a family gathering. Nobody looks relaxed.
And the clothes? Let’s not even go there.
Yet those are the very images we treasure. They preserve our history, even when that history exposes our questionable fashion choices. They remind us that we were once young, that our families gathered together, and that somebody cared enough to record those moments.
Perhaps that is the difference between then and now. Today, we can take pictures whenever and wherever we want. Our phones are full of selfies, birthday snaps and photographs taken simply because the lighting is right.
Back then, however, photography was an event. It brought people together and required effort, patience and a trusted photographer who understood the family.
Until next time, keep your kasi close, your memories alive and your stories coming. This is Vinch, signing out from the Kasi Chronicles.
