Collections

by Joseph T. Sinclair

My grand­moth­er col­lect­ed pitch­ers of all sizes and shapes. Dozens and dozens. They took up a huge amount of space in her large home and today would be con­sid­ered junky decor. I have a cou­ple of her pitch­ers vis­i­ble in my home with sev­er­al more in stor­age. The rest are dis­bursed among the oth­er grand­chil­dren most­ly stored, mis­placed, bro­ken, and lost. Few are used; no one dis­plays many of them.

Yet if the entire col­lec­tion was pho­tographed, it would be inter­est­ing. It had many diverse pieces and was an expres­sion of an ances­tor I don’t remem­ber. She died when I was three years old. In the dig­i­tal age, each descen­dant of my grand­moth­er could have the pitch­er pho­to col­lec­tion if it existed.

Is this a call to pho­to­graph the pitch­er col­lec­tion of my grand­moth­er? That’s an idea. I would have vis­it all her liv­ing grand­chil­dren, dig out the sur­viv­ing pitch­ers from stor­age, and pho­to­graph all the pitch­ers includ­ing the ones being used. That’s an ambi­tious project and prob­a­bly one that I won’t pur­sue. Besides a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the col­lec­tion is now discarded.

But the idea is not dead, and col­lect­ing pho­tos is not a dead idea. Had my grand­moth­er col­lect­ed pho­tos of pitch­ers instead of the pitch­ers them­selves, those pho­tos could be dig­i­tized and the col­lec­tion could be in the pos­ses­sion of each grandchild.

FDR (the pres­i­dent) had a stamp col­lec­tion which it has been said kept him amused (and sane) dur­ing the heavy pres­sures of his pres­i­den­cy includ­ing World War II. Col­lec­tions can be fun. But they can also be expen­sive. Stamp col­lect­ing isn’t cheap, par­tic­u­lar­ly if one wants to include a few rare stamps. I won­der if col­lect­ing pho­tos of stamps (or pitch­ers) might not be as sat­is­fy­ing as col­lect­ing the stamps them­selves and a lot less expensive?

I have ruled out col­lec­tions for myself think­ing them an expen­sive bur­den with lit­tle util­i­ty. But with the advent of the phone cam­era, a new kind of col­lec­tion is now prac­ti­cal: a pho­to col­lec­tion of cer­tain items.

In my case, the emerg­ing col­lec­tion I have inad­ver­tent­ly start­ed is art. I have found that most art muse­ums allow their art to be pho­tographed (although flash pho­tog­ra­phy is not usu­al­ly allowed), and I can build my own per­son­al col­lec­tion of beau­ti­ful art eas­i­ly (and some­what unob­tru­sive­ly) using my phone camera.

What makes this pos­si­ble or even practical?

• Your phone is usu­al­ly with you. You won’t miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a col­lec­tion pho­to when you run across it.
• Phone cam­eras are great cam­eras. You can use them to take won­der­ful pho­tos of objects, pho­tos that you will enjoy view­ing for as long as you’re inter­est­ed in your collection.
• You can eas­i­ly learn the basics for pho­tograph­ing the type of objects you want to collect.
• Your col­lec­tion will be very per­son­al based on your own expe­ri­ence of being in a cer­tain place at a cer­tain time.
• Your col­lec­tion can be huge. Dig­i­tal pho­tos don’t cost much.
• You can eas­i­ly share your col­lec­tion with oth­er people.
• Size is not a lim­i­ta­tion. You can col­lect pho­tos of ele­phants or moun­tains as well as stamps.
• Your col­lec­tion won’t take up phys­i­cal space and be an ongo­ing burden.

Like antique cars? Start a pho­to col­lec­tion. Learn how to pho­to­graph cars well. A bright shiny beau­ti­ful antique car pho­tographed at a sum­mer car show makes a great pho­to and a great addi­tion to a col­lec­tion. Like stamps? Most phone cam­eras are good macro cam­eras and can take excel­lent pho­tos of small objects. Like pitch­ers? You can learn tech­niques for tak­ing col­or­ful pho­tos of pitch­ers wher­ev­er you find them.

As for me, I have grown fond of shoot­ing pho­tos in art muse­ums. Phone cam­eras can do a great job of cap­tur­ing great art. There are a few things to learn, and con­di­tions (e.g., light­ing) aren’t always present to facil­i­tate accept­able pho­tos. Nonethe­less, I can build my own per­son­al art col­lec­tion to review and enjoy myself from time to time and also share with oth­ers. Indeed, so long as the art is not copy­right­ed, I can use it for almost any purpose.

Keep in mind also that a pho­to col­lec­tion is not con­fined to the com­put­er mon­i­tor or tablet screen. You can make prints and dis­play them. One can imag­ine that a dozen col­or­ful prints of my grandmother’s pitch­ers on the wall could be even more attrac­tive than the pitch­ers them­selves on dis­play. The pho­tos would be more vis­i­ble, take up less space, and could be any size. One can imag­ine that an 8” x 10” pho­to of a stamp on the wall could be more sat­is­fy­ing than the same lit­tle stamp in a stamp album.

If this seems like a crazy idea to you, per­haps you are think­ing in the snap­shot mode. Rather, think in the fine art mode. Learn to take fine art pho­tos of the objects in your col­lec­tion. Take pho­tos that are fine art by them­selves regard­less of the objects. Make your pho­tos of your col­lec­tion exquis­ite ones.