On the last of the 12 days of Christmas, it is fitting that we are visited by The Ghost of Christmas Past. This enchanting spirit is the first of three Ghostly visitors that appear to Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ story, A Christmas Carol.

The Ghost of Christmas Past personifies our tonality of memory, and the power nostalgia holds over us, to glamorize with a softly dim glow, our fond rememberings of distant days gone by, what is lost to us and longed for… an era that will never be again. This past holds the key to what we seek in the future.

As our past becomes the present, it sets the way for the future. Here she is the link between the old year and the new. She looks back to honor the memory of the old year gone, and our lessons learned, but she also holds forward the keys to the opening of the new year. A happy synchronicity of being comes when we value the nature of time, and respect each moment as it passes, a trick that allows us to keep on center as we glide into our future being.

This Ghost also stands in warning!  She is telling us to appreciate what we have in the moment, not to let our time lapse unseen or be taken for granted. Once we grasp this awareness she then has the power to grant us a continually blooming present day Nostalgia, that resonates onward through each reoccurring instant, a constant current into the next and the next, always so soon to come. We step with her into the flow and take the choice to be happy in the here and now, as each strand unfolds, moment by moment.

For my in-camera illustration of this character I chose Crysta Luke to play the part.

All Text and Images ©2015 Robin Davis

Every image that is created from the mind of the artist has a deeper story behind it, whether admitted or not. My image entitled Tuning Fork is no exception. I found it during a recent trip home, and made this composition on my Grandmother’s old upright piano that always stood in my childhood bedroom, where often a lone string would hum and vibrate in the middle of the night.

Here is the story about the fork.

Tuning Fork – Little Prints on Metal, framed with tin

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In our kitchen, my Mother kept an old mangled fork from the farm, not made of silver or stainless, whose tines had buckled and warped, with the edges worn down from years of use. The entire end was uneven, the finish was yellowed and wearing away, but the rippled unparalleled tines made it perfect for hooking the end of a piece of frying bacon, and that is how she used it.

Once when I was told to set the table for dinner, I happened to be mad at my Father, which was a very very rare occurrence, and I don’t even remember why. On impulse, I picked that fork to put by his plate as a pure act of aggression.

When we started to eat, he did not really notice and was making the best of it, but after repeated stabbings around the mouth from the uneven points, Wilton, who was normally soft spoken, finally erupted. He said, “Collene, I know we are not fancy people, but can’t we afford some decent silverware!”  He never knew that I had done it, but my Mother gave me a knowing glare from across the kitchen counter and handed him another fork.

Both the Piano and the Fork are individual objects that have become personal symbols that key my memory into so many stories from their past, many from before I was even born. Tuning into the past triggers a part of my brain where I think a realm of visual composition and abstract thinking also resides, and the current everyday problems of the boring rational world are tuned out.

FOR MY STUDENTS:

A great self assignment for photographers and artists  is to pick an object of your (or a loved one’s) symbolic past, and design an image that evokes the idea of this memory. Think about the quality and direction of light, the tonality, simplicity and how the background and shadow support the object. All of these little decisions will combine uniquely to create your own desired emotional impact.

image and all text ©2015 Robin Davis