"I am lying across my parents bed, stretched towards my Dad, giving him a kiss. A big, wet, puckered-up kiss.

The bedspread is 1970s purple satin. I remember the smooth feel of it.
I think I am three. My birthday cake is in the foreground; a luscious sweetie-covered fairy cottage. Definitely homemade.

I love this photograph.

I stole it from my Mum when I was a teenager, years after my Dad died.

We never had photos of him displayed in our home after he died.


Its like he just disappeared...

I wanted to see him."




"Its my grandmother.

We spent a lot of time together when I was young.

Its quite difficult to remember exact features. I only seam to be able to
focus upon one part of her face at a time. The rest become fuzzy.

She has a nice smile...
Her hairs quite white...
She has strong kind eyes...

You can see shes lived life."





"My Mum is leaning against the side of the house.

She has her hands behind her back.

She looks so young.

I still see that in her at times."





"Growing up I thought I was fat, ugly and unattractive.
But the person who looks back at me appears happy, content, comfortable.

In some ways this image I had is replaced, displaced, lost.
In others I see that I was, am. No different than anybody else."







"Its of my father just before he went to sea.

He never came back."





"Its my communion photograph

I hated it......

Im wearing short black trousers.
My legs are close together so my shorts look like a skirt."

"He's standing by a wall. Its a kind of biscuity colour.
I guess it must be autumn as there are leaves all around his feet. He has jet-black hair and a rather cheeky smile. Hes wearing a collarless shirt its brilliant white.

Errrmm..

A waistcoat, oh yes, and a pair of baggy trousers, which look rather funny. In one hand hes holding what looks like a letter.
He's tall, quite slim but muscular. He has wavy hair, strong features. He's handsome. I obviously cant make out the colour of his eyes, but Ive been told they were brown.

He looks quite sad.

Its the only photograph I have of him really.

"It's a photo of me with my little brother. I am around 6 and he is
a toddler still in his pushchair. My back is to the camera and my brother is
also turned away. We're looking at my favourite fountain in the park we used to go to.

There is a man in the far distance and it looks like we are looking at him.
I don't remember who he is. Maybe he is my dad, or grandad, or maybe he's a complete stranger.

I don't know who took the photo. But it's my favourite and is stuck to the
mirror of my dressing table. It reminds me of the time spent as a family in
that park. Whoever took it didn't care that you couldn't see our faces. It
reminds me that my family love me regardless of how I look.

It also makes me feel protective of my brother and it reminds me of a time
when he didn't tower over me!"





"Looking at an old school photograph I was surprised that I could remember every single face and everyone's name.

I have memories of them all.....
but no actual memory of me being part of that class."





"Its a photograph of the boy I fell for before I'd met him.

He's just at the lake, looking the other way, playing with his sleeve sort of
awkwardly.

When we fall out, its the photo I think of to remember how I felt
about him then".

"My memory comes from a photograph of my father and a mutual friend
of ours at a fun fair in Italy.

The picture features my father and the friend behind one of those boards a that has the body of a man and women painted on, but with spaces for the heads of the people behind.

My father is grinning broadly and our friend is pulling a womanly face that matches the painted body perfectly.

This memory is special to me as this was a holiday in Bologna that my father and I took when I was about 20/21 years old.

I think this was one of the first times I ever thought of my father as being
more than parent, as being a friend as well."

"When my oldest son turned three, I took a picture of him in front of his birthday cake, surrounded by three candles. I also remember that, the very moment I took the picture, I had an idea for a photo book: Fifteen double-page spreads juxtapose various photographs of myself and my son, both at similar ages, from birth to approximately four years old......

One can witness in both sets of photographs, time delayed by almost exactly 38 years.

Was I led to take certain photographs of my son because I knew and remembered my own pictures in my own family album? Is it just a coincidence that 38 years on my son's favourite pyjama is also Yellow? Do we remember life from our first few years or do we remember life from the photographs of our first few years as assembled in our family albums?

Ultimately, like in the final scene of Stanley Kubrick's film "A space Odyssey 2001", in which linear time has been disrupted and an astronaut sees an image of himself as an old man, first eating and then lying on a bed, dying, only to turn into an embryo, the book reminds us that we are simultaneously our sons and our fathers and that we are part of an immense cycle."



"I have a few photographs of Glashier street in Anfield.

This is all I have now of that wonderful street.

I remember Rusty the dog from down the street running past and me sitting on the floor in the vestibule in the summer when it was hot (doors shut of course) in my own little world, in the 70's

I miss that world."



"He's looking at me and pointing. Showing his young daughter something. Maybe it's a reflection. He often did this.. A trick photograph.

I guess his daughter is about the same age as my little girl is now. It's such an intimate, shared moment.

Not just between the two of them, but with me also.

It's a moment of surprise, discovery, of something being explained. He was my teacher, my mentor, my friend and my uncle. Hard to believe he's been dead for almost 10 years now."

Looking at a photograph of me taken on my first day at a new School and I remembered this....
It was a cold day and I stand outside, in what seems like a never-ending space. As I look at the other children running around, skipping and playing with their friends I decide to do my own thing. In the distance I see a shiny coin on the floor. I run over and kneel down to pick it up. I hold it in my hand and look closely thinking about what I should do with it. I place the coin in my skirt pocket. Suddenly the bell rings and I freeze.......

We all line up like soldiers as we wait for our teacher. I smile as I decide to keep it for my mum.
"She has had a great first day at school" my teacher says. "You've found a 2 pence my mum says." I looked at my mumshe looks happy. I was a childit seemed like so much money to me then........

I still stand on that same playground, but this time Im not a five year old pupil anymore.
I'm the one ringing the bell.

"Miss Ive found this a child tells me with excitement 'Can I keep it?"
I look down to see a 2 pence coin in their hand.



"June 1986, I took this outdoor shot with a second hand 35 mm.

We had been for a meal and it was a humid dry evening but still light.

The subject is sharp in focus looking away from the camera with a slight stiff smile to sealed cherry lips, is very demur and well dressed, in contrast to the background which is light and blurred but you can make out Lady Lever Art gallery.

A few days later I moved away from the village and we set up home together

my future wife!"

"I am told this is the photograph that was sent to my Grandad when he was in North Africa during the Second World War.

He was in the RAF.

It was taken on the family allotment and features three of my four my great uncles John, Des and Les, standing up straight, grinning like mad, and my great auntie Polly, seated and more demure, (her real name was Dorothy).
Standing at the centre are my Great-Grandparents, and at their feet, the family dog, a whippet, I think.

This seems like a fairly formal family portrait, however, when you look closer theres a very odd thing. You can see the edge of a chair and the profile of an arm and leg of an additional person, seated behind the group.

No-one remembers who it was though. I thought it might be great uncle Jim, but apparently not."





"It's a photograph of me and my man.

It's on the shelf above the radiator in the kitchen.

He works away and I only see him at weekend's.
It's Tuesday today and I wish the week away until he comes home and we are together again.

I miss him."



"Its a photograph of my mum.

I know its upstairs in an album, however I prefer not to look through the album as it upsets me.

Its an image which, when I think of her, its the one which always comes to mind first.

Theres nothing particularly significant or visually striking about the actual image as shes simply walking down a street where we used to live towards me.

Nevertheless its the one I always seem remember."







"I am alone in blinking sunlight.

My white broderie anglaise dappled.

As a child I would look back and wonder why I was on my own, trees stretching out behind me. Never once imagining that somebody was behind the cameras steady lens."







"It's a photograph of me and my two grown up daughters drinking cider in the sun at Glastonbury ....

We are all wearing sunglasses, one of them is wearing a silly tiger hat, we are laughing and truly happy to be together as we took the photograph of ourselves."



"It's a black & white handbag picture of my nan looking gorgeous with the RAF girls, I'm looking down at the picture.

My camera focused in on the old photograph, my nan is in the background with her cardi on, blurred but in full colour and is recounting her memories to me.

My nan talks to me about feelings that she'll not see the year out... she's 89 years old.

I always worry I'll forget the things she tells me.

This picture reminds me to appreciate our times together.... my memories of her confiding in me, that's where the magic of this picture is!"





"Its a picture of the whole school and Im on the front row aged 4 with pigtails and blue ribbons.

On the back row is my older sister with her jet-black hair cut in a trendy style.

Given its nearly fifty years ago I can still recognise some of the faces of those on the front row with me but not their names.

The nuns in the middle with their strict faces still fill me with some fear."




"It's a photo taken on day out to longleat safari park when I was 5 or 6 years old.

My dad fell asleep on the grass sitting up with his back against the bumper of our car.

He's got a brown souvenir park rangers hat on shading his head from the hot sunlight. I sat on the grass next to him laughing as my mum takes the picture.

I don't remember seeing any of the animals, but I remember running around without a care playing with my cousins."


"The picture was taken in my aunties back garden.
She had a old oil drum filled with water that had dead tiddler fish in it.
I don't know why but I'm holding one of the dead fish in my fingers.

It's not really the photograph of the fish thats significant, it's the memory attached....

It's the fact that we had to get two buses to get to my aunties, my mum and me sat on the top deck.

It felt like going to another country, but when I got older and drove there it was actually only 4 or 5 miles away.

Nevertheless I still like the memory that I had travelled to some far away place."




"This black and white photo was taken in Blacklers department store Christmas grotto.

Me aged 8 and my little brother aged 6.

In our hands we hold the toys from Father Christmas, my brother has a toy stingray model..

I hold a basket making kit.

We are in our school uniforms as we went straight from school and I know my mum is standing watching us both."





"This is a picture of me and my dad


He is holding me in his arm.

My dad looks very proud of me.

I am only about 2 month old.

This photograph makes me warm inside but now I am nearly 10."






"It was a beautiful moment - photographed over my wife's shoulder,

catching the corner of her radiant smile, you can see our first baby,

just a few moments old, looking perfect wrapped in a towel

from the bathroom, where he had just been born - early!"




"It looks like a hotel.

It is red sandstone, half covered in darker red ivy
(it was October when I was there).

There are lots and lots of windows, for only two stories.
And yet this place is full of stories: it is the college, where I first learned that I could write.

Great memories."



"That's me.

I think I was 4 years old when this photo was taken in my kindergarten.

We had so many kids waiting in the queue for the quick snapshot.

Photographer had same set up for everyone:

A Little table for hand support, a small chair to sat on.
One hand holding phone ( pretending to call somewhere, another hand holding a toy (for girls that was a doll, for boys - can't remember)

Fun times posing in front of camera!
Now I'm taking picture and people posing for me, including little ones."

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