We All Deserve a Shot at Developing | Polaroid, Memory & My Father's Legacy

With all the talk of the Blue Moon that occurred on May 31, 2026, there was emphasis on looking back at what you put into motion two years ago. Two years ago for me, was the day before my 39th birthday. Some things that happened that day I put in motion intentionally, others I did not, but they all definitely feel like they are coming to a head now. Be it the Blue Moon, or simply time passing, these last two years have been some of the most transformative of my life.

During that period, I spent a lot of time with my father’s things in the storage unit. Many of those things included his cameras, his photos, or photos he took of his kids, his work, his travels, and his life.

In looking through the Polaroids he took, I realized one of the very first sounds I heard coming into this world 41 years ago was that of a Polaroid camera snapping a picture. My first appearance on film was in a Polaroid picture.

While at times it was difficult to look through what was left of my father’s life in that storage unit, the events leading up to getting everything in there were probably some of the most painful events of my life.

I travelled from LA to UT several times after he passed to help pack up the house, among other things. It was during this time that the relationship with my mother was forever changed. I have never had what I would call a “good” relationship with my mother.

On May 31st 2023, just less than two months after my father had passed away, I was in Riverton, UT, packing up his office at the house he shared with my mother and older sister at the time. I phrase it like that for a reason. My parents were estranged for many years, yet still lived together like roommates essentially.

As a family, we all agreed not to throw anything away that was my father’s unless we all agreed. So on that day two years ago, while my older sister and I packed up his things, we were also cleaning the house and needed a garbage bag for trash. We found one with some trash in it lying on a chair in the front room. When I opened the bag, I found what was most definitely not trash, or at least not things I considered garbage.

Inside the bag were mementos from my father’s life; birthday and Father’s Day cards from his children, business cards from his early jobs, a suitcase tag from a trip, old pictures he took of his car, and pictures of the camera shop he worked at.

There were other photos too. Other photos that had been ripped in half, and one of those photos was of me.

Another photo tossed in the garbage bag was a photo of me as a baby that he took.

Not only was finding the pictures and things of my father upsetting, but for my own mother to have discarded them, and me, as if we were nothing more than garbage, was truly devastating.

Photographs are some of the only things left behind when a person passes away that we have as tangible pieces of history. I spent that day, the day before my birthday, packing my father’s things with care to preserve his memory, and I spent my 39th birthday moving all of his things into a storage unit to preserve his memory, and to protect them as he would have protected me.

In the two years that have since passed, photographs, my father’s cameras, photography, and videography as creative outlets, they have all become even more important in my life than I ever expected they could. I believe this is why I gravitated toward what I’m doing now: it’s a way to move forward in life and honor his memory, and it’s a way for me to always feel close to him.

The sound of a Polaroid camera taking a picture is one that will always take me back to my childhood and remind me of how lucky I was to have my dad there to capture the moments of my life on film, because he thought they were worth preserving, not something to be discarded.

My daddy holding me the day I was born, June 1st, 1985, shot on Polaroid.

Sometimes moments turn out exactly as we captured them, a memory perfectly preserved. Sometimes they turn out with flaws; the smile radiating joy somehow looks to be more of a grimace, the eyes full of life, closed. Some come out with specks of dirt from a dirty lens, or there might be a finger in the shot, or some awkward moment in the background you didn’t see before.

Some come out underdeveloped, and some overdeveloped, and just like photographs, we are all not without flaws, but I think we all still deserve a shot at developing.