1/125th of a second, really?

What is it I (or you) see in a photograph?  The past,the present, the future, 1/125 of a second and then…

At 73  years of age I do not actually jog  regularly  but I do 4 miles in a little over one hour, almost every day—in 2007-2017 it used to be 52-54 minutes but age is creeping in. There is a creek with a levee near my house where I do this  exercise and yesterday I  noticed this in the walkway…

it reminded me of someplace else.

I like my legs because they are long enough to reach the ground and I like my feet because they still work,

I can walk around

and they always bring me back home.

and I am fortunate enough that when I look down I can see them.

But feet do not answer the question of  are photographs for real?  Some people carry around photos  of themselves for years, hang them on the wall or use them over and over for marketing themselves,

One day, my  parents shortly before my father died,  dressed up in their Sunday best,  went to a professional photography studio and had portraits  made  of them together  and individual for the family.  They hang on my wall. That moment is forever for me.

Below  (please excuse the reflections, I just made the image quickly)  is my mother’s family, in the front row from the left is a four year old girl, that is my grandmother, (I am73 now)and most of the small boys wear skirts  as was common then. This image hangs on my wall, sometimes I look at it, outside of my experiences with my grandmother this is all the contact I have with this part of my family.

And these people will never know me, I was just in some place for a few minutes, sometimes I talk with the people in my images, sometimes not, but whenever Ilook at the images these people in that second of time have a relationship with me, a relationship which outside of their physical appearance at that moment may have nothing to do with who they are, their accomplishments, their failures, just a few moments sitting in some folding chairs eating some ice cream.

So when I look at an image, its 1/125 of a second, it empowers  that moment  to  longer—as long as the image may survive— and exert an influence of some sort, on me? on who? and perhaps long after I die,  someone may “discover” it and have thoughts or feelings about the visual experience, or just see it as some garbage to be thrown away.