Going through old photos

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

old photographs is encountering old friends. It doesn't matter how long it's been since the moment was 'frozen'.

But whether on your phone, computer screen or in the more ritualised terrain of an old-style photo album, photos provide a strange, warm pleasure of standing at the crossroads where past and present meet, briefly.Old photos hold memories that, by the very act of looking at them, can be microwaved and thawed for one's remembering pleasure. They unlock a treasure trove of memories, emotions and experiences, even rekindling senses.

These 'still-life's hold the power to bridge the gap between past and present, allowing us to not only relive moments but also to remember loved ones in 'real', not abstract, terms. The frisson one feels when looking at one's own picture from years ago — say, specifically at the thumb of one's own baby hand, and then looking down at the same (?) thumb as it is right now — is truly mystical.

Age is held at bay in these rectangular re-presentations, even as you know it has flowed on and spilled out of the photo frame. These visual time capsules are witnesses to a world no longer here, but whose offshoots and successors do make up the here and now.