{"id":18146,"date":"2017-08-23T12:19:23","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T16:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18146"},"modified":"2017-08-23T12:19:23","modified_gmt":"2017-08-23T16:19:23","slug":"capturing-todays-history-one-snap-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/capturing-todays-history-one-snap-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Capturing today\u2019s history \u2013 one snap at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir
\n<\/strong>
\nYou all know the feeling when a photo turns out to have that certain special something that you want to share with the world.
\nYou send it out, let people know where you\u2019ve been, who you\u2019ve met and, in some cases, what you\u2019re eating.
\nA new phenomenon spawned by smart phones and social media? Think again.
\nNo, think again \u2013 back to the time of our great-grandparents or beyond when newfangled portable personal cameras changed the face of our documented history.
\nUp until the late 1800s, photography was a very formal affair where you\u2019d get dressed up in your Sunday best \u2013 no matter the day of the week \u2013 and trek out to a photographer\u2019s studio to capture your stuffy family group.
\nThe humble Brownie camera was a game changer, allowing people to capture informal moments that today stand as testimony to the everyday life of yesteryear.
\nNow, the Aurora Museum & Archives and the Aurora Public Library\u2019s Camera Club are teaming up to recreate this excitement, documenting the families of Aurora today for the historians of tomorrow with Snapshot Aurora: A Front Yard Perspective.
\nLaunching next month, Snapshot Aurora is described as \u201ca photographic time capsule of Aurorans for Canada 150\u201d inviting households and businesses to be photographed for future generations.
\n\u201cTime doesn\u2019t remember everything,\u201d says Michelle Johnson of the Aurora Museum & Archives. \u201cAs time passes, some things get forgotten. I think this is a way of taking a couple of minutes to take a photo, knowing it is going into the museum collection, knowing it is going to be accessed by future generations as a reference. It is one way to visually leave your mark in the Town of Aurora and it will connect your family and your home.\u201d
\nSnapshot Aurora was inspired by over 100 photos currently in the Museum collection which show everyday Aurorans simply standing outside their houses. They are photos that might look a bit stilted to today\u2019s audience, but there was an excitement behind each snap.
\nThese front porch portraits were emblematic of a bigger trend going on where camera technology was becoming increasingly accessible to the average family.
\nHand held cameras were on the scene and, if you happened to have a Brownie, you could send the entire camera off to Kodak for developing and your photos would be sent back to you along with your camera loaded with a fresh roll of film.
\nSometimes these snapshots would be developed onto postcard stock, ready for you to send mementos of your travels or life back home to friends and relatives around the world \u2013 as instantly as technology of the day would allow.
\n\u201cPhotography was able to become a hobby,\u201d says Ms. Johnson. \u201cPeople could take photos in front of their homes, their yards, outside of the studio setting. A lot of historical portraiture are formal. You go from paintings to photography portraits. It is formal because people still took it very seriously, it was expensive and it was new, but it is more relaxed and casual. Seeing that side of history in that light makes it a little bit more approachable. You can relate to the subjects a little bit more: they are at home, they are in their personal setting, and it seems like there is a barrier gone with these photos.
\n\u201cThinking of photography as a hobby, Shawna [White, Curator of the Aurora Museum & Archives] thought why not partner with the Aurora Public Library camera club and get some hobbyists, some skilled photographers to help us in capturing front yard Aurora and just putting the call out to see if residents will take a family photo in front of their home.\u201d
\nIntended as a Canada 150 Legacy Project for the Aurora Museum & Archives, Snapshot Aurora is relatively unique because they do not have aspirations right now of publishing the photos either online or in a book. It is simply about getting these photos \u2013 and each participant will be given a photo to keep! \u2013 and adding them to the archives.
\nFrom there, the individual photos can be added to an existing file on a particular property or family already in the archives, or form the basis for a brand new file on your property or your family.
\n\u201cWe want to layer in the current, contemporary Aurora with the historic Aurora and get that continuation of history,\u201d says Ms. Johnson. \u201cAs much as this is a project of people today, I think of it as a time capsule project, a project for the people of the next century when they want to see what a house looked like 100 years ago and want to know about the people who lived in it.
\n\u201cWe would like everyone in Town to participate and take their photo, and we really don\u2019t have a scope limit on how many we can get. Thinking about how technology and culture evolves, we are encouraging people to submit their own photos too. Some might even be taken with a selfie stick so [a photographer] might be the ones in front of and behind the camera. That is a pretty stark contrast right there \u2013 telling of how in 2017 this is how a lot of us used to get pictures not only of our family, but us with our family!\u201d
\nFor more information on Snapshot Aurora and to sign you, your family or your business up for the project, visit auroramuseum.ca.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You all know the feeling when a photo turns out to have that certain special something that you want to share with the world.
\nYou send it out, let people know where you\u2019ve been, who you\u2019ve met and, in some cases, what you\u2019re eating.
\nA new phenomenon spawned by smart phones and social media? Think again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2017-08-24-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4IG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 10:45:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}