There’s something about a photograph. The Chinese once said, ‘a picture is worth 1,000 words.’ That was probably uttered a few hundred years ago. Pictures, photos tell stories, display emotions, crystalize time and place and events. Here are a few notes on the photographs in the McPhoto Gallery.

If the photo is black and white, chances are good that I didn’t take the photo, and the photo is probably older than my children.

I have black and white photos of my 97-year-old grandmother before she started school. There are photos of my Dad when he had hair.

As you’d expect, there are photos of children. My parent’s children and my children. In fact, I have a few thousand photos of children in varying stages of evolution.

The McPhoto Gallery, as of today, has but a few dozen photos; some old, some new. More will be added over time. Each requires a caption, so I’m inclined to batch the photos, a few every so many days, rather than simply add one photo each day.

The cameras used for the photos are as varied as the subjects themselves. Many were taken by my Grandmother’s Kodak Brownie camera, which still works, though they no longer manufacture film for the camera.

I’ve gone through a dozen cameras of varying quality and expense. One of my favorites was my first single lens reflex camera; a Pentax Spotmatic. It served me well through three children and two marriages before finally succumbing to rubber rot after 25 years.

Today I use a Canon 20D, a digital SLR. It’s easily the best digital camera I’ve owned. SLR is the only way to travel. Still, I miss that little exposure needle in the Pentax.

Photographs today are mostly digital. I haven’t used the two film cameras in a couple of years. I shoot, load photos into the computer, then clean up the image in Photoshop, then publish or print.

Regardless, it’s the photograph that must capture the moment. Fortunately, with digital photography I can extend the moment. With film, it was always necessary to be careful about the shot, to compose, check shutter speed, check lens aperture. No more.

Now I can shoot 20 photos in the time it took one scene to get captured to film. Somewhere in the mess of 20 there’s bound to be a good one.

Regardless, the camera doesn’t make the moment. Some of the photos display personality, others tragedy, a few simple events of days long since forgotten.

Our family is scattered all across the country, so the McPhoto Gallery may become a single place for family members to retrieve a few moments of the past, share a few tears and laughs, and remember what was once forgotten.

If we can’t share our words face to face, perhaps we can share the moment in a photo.