NO DAVID BAILEY

I'm no photographer: such talent as I have is solely with the written word. Nevertheless I click away and later wonder how all those clever, arty shots that I planned have evolved into such bland and lifeless images when viewed on screen. 
The joy of digital photography is that it allows people like me to delete naff pictures in much the same way as doctors are able to bury their mistakes. 
Back in the old pre-digital era, we waited days for our snaps to be developed then marvelled that we'd managed to capture any likenessess at all.
My family photos rarely ended up in albums. Instead, they were consigned to a series of biscuit-tins and stored under the bed or in the attic, not to be revisited unless I was prepared for the sad recognition that the past really is a different country.

 













SNAPS

The tin is packed full to the brim,
with photographs in musty layers
like autumn leaves and, on a whim,
I pick it up and go downstairs,
begin to sift through and unearth
my other selves, six decades worth. 
Child, adult, parent, here am I,
alarming hair, bell-bottom jeans,
wide suit-lapels, a kipper tie:
the faux pas of my middle-teens,
while, further back, in monochrome,
an infant with a hairless dome.
How sad these vanished, other selves:
the awkward kids, the dapper chaps,
that lie exposed when someone delves
into this box of fading snaps.
In every photograph I see
my unimportant history.