It’s hard to imagine a world without a camera. We use them to remember birthdays, weddings, holidays, and any number of other events that are significant to us. These little photographs act as a time machine transporting us to a seemingly simpler time. They help us remember loved ones no longer with us and sometimes family members we never met. Phtography, so ubiquitous today, isn’t very old in the timeline of history. Eighteen fourty is the beginning of camers as we know them, type device to record permanent images on some surface. While 165 years is long for an individual, in the march of time it’s the proverbial drop in the bucket.

Everyday Joes can’t begin counting from the 1840s. We must count from Eastman’s invention of plastic roll film in 1889. Maybe I’ll complete the history lesson in some other post because today is about the point and shoot experience, we all have with a camera. Who cares about creating art when all we really want is memories for the future? Who cares about depth of field and perfect side lighting? Who cares about color or black and white? Who cares indeed! We’re looking for memories.

Our memories from the snapshots aren’t restricted to people. Objects are important for our memory making also. Sometimes objects are the morter for our memories. I volunteer some of my time at the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, California (www.socalrailway.org ). The museum is a cornicopia of resources and experiences for rail fans who idealize the days of the iron horse. Families looking for a day out will have a good time at SCRM also. In addition to working trains and trolleys (you can even sign up to drive a train), there are exhibits of equipment used to make the trains run, traffic signs to protect the public from stepping in front of a moving train, equipment to repair broken trains and tracks to name a few. I don’t have enough time to list everything. There are steam trains, diesel trains, electric trains, and street cars. Hanging out on sidetracks are passenger cars too! Thomas the Train comes by during the year, so does the Polar Express during the holiday season.

The museum has something else that it maybe didn’t intend to collect. The founders witnessed the end of Los Angeles’ first mass transit system, the Pacific Electric (also known as the Red Cars) and Los Angeles Railway. SCRM has several operating trolleys in the correct paint scheme for their eras that can transport you back to another day. As part of preserving this part of history they also captured the growth of Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs, what some have called a city in search of a center. Hidden in the archives are thousands of pictures of trolleys and trains and their station stops. Vast sections of Southern California before the freeways, before one city crashed into another with the only distinguishing mark a city sign, were captured by amatuer photographers who wanted a snapshot of the mighty Pacific Electric.

They used large and small cameras from 4×5 Graflex type field cameras to a variety of point and shoot boxes that used 120 or medium format film. In the post war era, the 35mm camera grew in popularity and combined with Kodachrome, they captured images on color slides. These amatuer photographers developed and printed 8×10 prints in the garage or bathroom of their house. They collected photos in binders and rearragned their collection by route, city, and decade. They looked for passenger trains or trolleys, for accidents that would warn others that a train cannot stop on a dime. Along the way they recorded a changing region, one that would become a powerful economic engine for California and the country. They photographed buildings that no longer exist, cars that no longer run, communities that changed names or were incorporated into a new city. They documented the growth of downtown Los Angeles and Glendale. Their photographs reveal the explosive growth of Long Beach, made possible by a quick ride on the Red Car, all from the viewfinder of a camera and the resulting snapshot.

SCRM became a repository of Southern California’s growth and history over the last 140 years. It wasn’t captured by artists looking to get the right light or focusing on telling a story in a single frame. The snapshot was their forte. SCRM became the holder of Southern California’s change as a whole unit, the illustrated record assembled later in collections that are unique but unplanned as part of a whole and larger story.

All SCRM photos from their Smug Mug web page.

So, all hail to the snapshot, the one you and I take for our memories sake. The quick pic that may not consider the direction of the light or right pose. A snapshot that will tell future generations of their past!