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Buddy Photo

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Yesterday was the anniversary of the taking of this photo, snapped from the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. It shows Earth and its moon – the first photograph ever taken with both in the same frame.

Imagine, these two celestial bodies, linked forever in a gravitational embrace, but never photographed side-by-side.

That is, unless you count that time they went clowning around in the photo booth at Dayton’s Arcade in downtown Minneapolis.

It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. They’d been orbiting Block “E” for much of the day, feeling tired and a little goofy, when some people came out of the booth laughing. Earth happened to have a couple of quarters in her pocket, and she thought, ‘why not’?

There’s something about that photo booth environment that makes the pictures taken there more memorable than most of those high-buck, carefully posed portraits.

Maybe it’s the built-in incentive to mug for the camera. After all, you gave up your pocket change for this and the shutter is going to click whether you’re ready or not, so you might as well do something to make it look like you’re having fun!

The Voyager photo cost more – lots more. Bazillions. And it is an amazing, historic image. But there is an icy distance to it that simply couldn’t exist in the close confines of the photo booth. If it’s a buddy picture you want, something full of warmth and fun, the photo booth is where you want to be.

Describe a favorite photo of you with a friend or a relative – where was it taken and how did it come about?

44 thoughts on “Buddy Photo”

  1. Morning all! Side note before we get going… be sure to go back and read the whole weekend’s comments…. very very funny!

    My favorite photo of myself with someone else is actually my senior high picture, taken with my dog (Irish, the Irish Setter). When I was in high school, it was really important to me that I “march to a different drummer” (I had a poster with these words on my bedroom wall). Someone a year ahead of me, whom I really admired, had his senior picture taken with the family parrot and I really liked that idea.

    I don’t remember having too many arguments about, although looking back, it’s not the kind of thing my mother would have thought was fabulous. The photographer was very gracious about the whole ordeal, although he warned me repeatedly that he wasn’t an animal photographer. Back then you didn’t sixteen different shots to choose from either.

    Nobody seemed to think I was any weirder after the photo appeared in the yearbook than they had before – in fact, most of my friends hardly batted an eye over it. I still have a copy of it up on the wall at my house!

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Ditto to VS’ reminder to read weekend comments. I’m planning my move to “End of the Trail” or “Bab-Halla” already! And I”m still laughing.

    I have several favorite photos. Earlier this year my sister gave me an album of our early childhood years. There are several photos of us in sister dresses that are big favorites. More recently, there is a photo from 2 years ago of my husband, son, and I in front of the Colosseum that has to be my favorite from the 21st century.

    I wish we could post photos here.

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  3. I love the picture I took of my son before the junior prom, He took a girl he hardly knew and I said it was important to photograph him with someone whose name we would remember so I drove him in his tux to McDonald’s and snapped a picture of him with the Ronald statue sitting on a bench.

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    1. OOoh, you just reminded me. When I married as a very young pup, we had the reception in my backyard… as the party wound down, the bridal party wandered to the back of the yard.. there is a lovely photo of me sitting on the swing set in my dress w/ the ex- behind me in his tux. It was very sweet and just the kind of thing I like. I had this one printed in black and white… in an album in the attic somewhere.

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  4. And I just re-watched Amelie.
    Lawrence, Cleo and Clyde–three siblings–sitting on the top rail of three wooden rails that made up the fence for the barnyard. Must be about 1951 or 52; I’m not even wearing glasses yet, but I look myopic. My sister is wearing very bright clothes, yellow top and pink pants. My brother and I in t-shirts and jeans, our knees coming through, these are his and my work clothes. White t-shirts; there was no other color for t shirts then. Lawrence looking so much like the father he hated so much. My belt end hangs down eight inches, a hand-me-down from Lawrence. We are all ridiculously thin, well my sister not ridiculously thin, she has fought the Wetter Fat gene her whole life and won. On the farm west of Two Harbors, Knife River Valley in the background, the trees so short you can see the whole valley below. Everything looks like the hardscrabble farm it was. My memory can never make it as rough and hardscrabble and poor as it was, as we were, the truth the photo tells. But we think we are funny. Boots is there reaching up to be petted. Cows and chickens in the background. Odd there are no cats. Mother Adeline took the picture, of course. Behind it all is a layer of some emotion, not sadness exactly, not loneliness. Something.
    I have this picture up in front of me as inspiration as I write my fictionalization of this childhood. But I have made the three in the story not Lawrence, Cleo and Clyde. But three someone elses.

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  6. i have no idea of where it is but the photo i remember was one where my brother and sister and i were seated on an ice cream cone shape foot stool. the ice cream cone went left to right not up and down and so my sister who was 2 years old sat on the tip with her legs strattling it, my brother who was 4 sat behind her an i the big 6 year old brought up the rear. it was very formal with hair parted correctly mini white shirt and ties my sisters dress crisp and unwrinkled, her curls bouncing as she looked toward the lens in anticapation of the next snap from cliff the milkman who also did family portraits brother paul was cool under pressure and sucked his two middle fingers with one hand and swirled his hair with the other while cliff was getting ready. when it was time to shoot the newly formed cow lick would be pressed into place and snapped then on to the next pose. i was the pompadore wannabe trying to look james dean at age 6 but failing as only a true innocent can. the walnut paneling that my dad had just installed in the basement of the 1957 split level in west bloomington where we lived in the midst of erma bombecks suburban sprawl of the 60’s was evident in our starry eyes. the twins were moving to town that year, the vikings were comng right atfter that. childhood consisted of hitting rocks form the new gravel driveways with the 2 inch wide 3 foot long surveyors stakes that were everwhere in the neighborhood. oy the builders would get upset whne they found dthose stakes missing from their places. ray dewberry two doors down, don tanaka next door who was concerned because he was japanese and wanted to be sure my dad was ok with living next door to a japanese guy he had gotten out of an internment camp 15 years earlier and did not assume america was what it appeared to all of us, scott bowman and his houseful of sisters with fudgecycle stains ever vigilnt on their cheeks and dresses in the photo where the three of us strattle the black and white imatation leathern bench the saddle shoes on all 3 of us tell it all. not a scuff not a mark obviously bought for an easter march down the aisle of the gymnasium converted to handle the two at a time service the catholics were cranking out from the overflow that was typical in the exploding suburbs in 1960. its not the picture its where the picture takes you. clydes memory is hardscrabble mine is leave it to beaver. the only pictures i everehad taken in the photo booth were taken at the daytons radisson parking ramp hallway downtown but dale you were in illinois….how did you know?

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  7. I have several “cousin” photos that I treasure – from Como Zoo, line up as “Lowers Flowers” for my grandparents 45th wedding anniversary, attempting that same lineup as adults at one cousin’s wedding and realizing that to get the height right, my brother (the eldest of the five) had to stand on tiptoe and my cousin Mike (the youngest) and I had to crouch down a bit.

    I also have a photo somewhere from a long weekend trip two friends and I took to using New Ulm as a leaping off point to a handful to day trips. One place we landed was the former Ingalls farm on Plum Creek. The spot where the sod house was is now just a big divit by the bank of the creek, and it’s all in the middle of a pair of corn fields (to get there you drive through one farmer’s fields). Not sure if it was kosher or not, but we couldn’t resist wading in the creek – it had a very soft muddy bottom. There are pictures of each of us laughing in the creek – and then a shot of all of our muddy toes next to each other post-wade. Love the memories from those photos.

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  8. Can’t think of any favorite photos of me…I prefer photos either of no people (i.e. nature) or people who are not me. But anyway, I am heading North today. Duluth for a while and a couple days on the North Shore sandwiched in the middle. Yippee for the North Shore in September!

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      1. it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood today…sunny and 70-ish. Took a nice walk in the cool this evening. the air just smells better up here.

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  9. I think my favorite photo is the one when I was quite small, about 4, and I was sitting next to my best friend Becky, both of us eating oyster stew. Later on i became the photographer and there were fewer and fewer photos of me, since I was always behind the camera.

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      1. I believe she divorced her first husband and is living fairly near to our home town. We were inseparable until I was in Grade 2 and we moved to a new house just far enough away from the old neighborhood so that it was hard to get together. By the time we were in high school we did very little together. Her whole family was musical, and she had older sisters who sang together and sounded like the Lennon sisters. She dropped out of high school since she “had” to get married, and we lost touch after that.

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  10. I don’t like pictures of myself, and I will never make it as a scrapbooker, but there are a couple I do like and really should make a point of putting someplace I can see them often.

    Top pick of those is the one my aunt took of me, holding the s&h on the first of many to my grandfather-it is the only picture there is of the 3 of us, there never was a 4 generation picture taken, but done is done and it is best not to think of it. The s&h is very wee small and wearing red overalls, I’m wearing a sweater the aunt knit for me, and Grandpa, is Grandpa. This being the first visit of course, he didn’t say this, but every visit thereafter he would look at the tiniest baby born of his living descendants and say “he’s growing”, which always made me feel good. The s&h is now as tall as I am at age 12-he is definitely taking after that side of the family (all 6-footers). Still miss Grandpa. (for those of you keeping track, he was Tillie-my gravatar’s -son).

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    1. someone said once that death is a little like being a book being put up on a bookshelf for other to open when they think of you. you just opened the book again on your grandpa and it is always there. that is all there is and hopefully that is enough. not the same but enough

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  11. I have a picture of my sister and me – we were about 9 and 6 at the time – visiting some relatives in Oregon who had sort of adopted an orphaned raccoon as a pet. We fell in love with the raccoon and were heartbroken when we had to leave. In the photo my sister is holding the raccoon on her head (it was kind of frisky and wanted to climb people all the time). As the picture was taken my sister was muttering “Ow ow ow ow ow” under her breath because having a small raccoon on your head is not terribly comfortable. I wish the picture had been a little more focused and up close – you can’t really tell that’s a raccoon without being told. I like it anyway though.

    There is also a photo of us at the same house with two other small children, Darla and Randy. I have absolutely no recollection of Darla and Randy, and would not know who they were without the note in my mother’s handwriting on the back of the photo. I sure remember the raccoon though.

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    1. interesting how the fog works in the cobwebs of the memory. somtimes i think the out of focus blurr helps let the imagination fill in all the creases in the faces and the details that would otherwise be lost. i like the crisp ansel adams prints of the mountains and faces of the depression but there is something dremlike and warm about fuzzy photos thinking about elenors poloroid work that makes me attracted to the lack of crispness there.

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  12. One that comes to mind shows me in an old platform rocker, reading some little golden book to my sister, who is so tiny she can hardly sit up and is slumped against me – together we only take up about half of the chair. There’s a companion photo of her in the chair in one corner, and a large baby doll in the other corner. She is laughing, and the doll is not – it’s the only way you can tell them apart.

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  14. How will the children of age 10 or so and under answer this in 60 years.
    They will say, None of the 20,000 pictures taken of me as a child and stored in my computer stand out.”

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    2. Oh, I don’t know about that Clyde. Many of my favorite photos weren’t captured on film but are firmly documented in my mind’s eye. But once in a while, an old photo will jog the memory sufficiently to restore a forgotten incident or correct an errant memory. And, very often, when I look at a recent photo, Im disappointed. It takes time for the memory to fade just a bit before the photos seem to do justice to the subject.

      O-T: My mind is all fuzzy today. Am on massive doses of antibiotics and can barely hold my head up. The last couple of days haven’t been a lot of fun for me.

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  15. Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
    A time of innocence, a time of confidences
    Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
    Preserve your memories; they’re all that’s left you.

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  16. To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit
    for its prime function of looking forward.
    Margaret Fairless Barber

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  17. Another favorite picture for me is my son and his dad last summer, sitting on a couch, side-by-side, each reading a section of the newspaper. They are pretending they do not know someone is trying to take their picture and so are determinedly not looking up, but the smirks give the whole thing away.

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  18. Greetings! There is a great picture of my siblings and I on a woodpile at my parents’ old house. We’re all grown up, but not terribly old yet, so we were helping Dad with his woodpile (he loved to cut down old trees). It’s fall so we have jackets, hats and scarves on, and it’s a gray day so it has a dreamy quality. Each of us has a distinctive look and pose — some by accident, some on purpose. It’s a funny, but sweet picture with distinct personalities showing through for all 7 of us. A very neat picture that all of us treasure.

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  19. I’m struggling to get back into the swing of things – I’m getting there but I’m making slow progress and have had a couple of setbacks.

    I don’t much care for pictures of myself but there are a few I do like. The earliest one is black-and-white and was taken with our first dog, Gus, a Norwegian elkhound. I have just returned home from school and I’m wearing my school dress. We’re in the yard under a tree. I have my arms thrown around Gus’ neck and my face buried in his fur. He has the proud look of a father whose errant child has just returned home.

    The next one is later, when I’m in college and home on break. My younger brother Kurt and I were out washing the Jeep and Kurt picked up our second dog, a Springer spaniel named Pokey, and put her on the hood of the Jeep. We faced my Mom, who snapped a quick shot of the three of us facing the camera. Pokey looked like she was happy to be a third sibling.

    The most recent one was taken in 1983 by the former owner of a bygone resort on the North Shore Drive, south of Two Harbors, called Wonderland. (Clyde might remember it.) I used to stay in Cabin #8. My friend Laura and I went there one summer and posed for a photo on the front step of the cabin. Her smile has always brightened my day and she is smiling a lot in that photo. I like to look at it and remember feeling carefree…

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  20. Evening folks…
    I guess my favorite pictures are two of our wedding pictures that we have out on display; one of the entire wedding party in the church that I often look at; we all look so young! And two members of the party have passed on. The other picture is one of the typical, fuzzy romantic pictures photographers always liked back then. Kelly and I have our heads together and holding hands… it’s a nice picture.

    I’ve got a couple pictures of Kelly and I with a calf and a dog. The picture with Kelly and the calf (Chula) and the dog, everyone is looking off in the distance at something. In my picture, the calf is looking away, but the dog is looking at me “adoringly” says Kelly.

    My sister is remodeling her house and as she’s been cleaning she’s found some pictures. She gave me several pictures of Kelly and I down in the barn taken when we were still dating. It’s fun to remember way back then.

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