I have an old photo on my fridge. My daughter is grinning broadly for the camera, with her tiny legs hardly reaching the edge of the couch. I have one arm protectively draped around her and the other is holding our dog, who also appears to be smiling in the photo. It’s a daily reminder of a happy moment. Isn’t that what we all want from family photos? There must be millions of similar family pics taken all over the world every day. I find these frozen moments in time quite profound because they can help to create a visual timeline much like we see on Facebook profiles. Time is not completely lost when we can see these visual imprints and be reminded that we were once there, smiling for the camera. Photos allow us to travel back into the past.

I recently came across the blog Dear Photograph, which was started by Taylor Jones. He got the idea in May last year when he was sitting around with his family and his mother pulled out an old photo album. In one of the photos, his younger brother was sitting in front of his birthday cake. Jones noticed that his brother was sitting in the exact same spot the old photo was taken. So he grabbed a camera and took a shot of the old photo lined up to match its original location and posted it online. The blog soon went viral and has since been named one of Time magazine’s 10 best websites. You’ll find 200 or so photos on the site with short captions by the photographers, mostly reflecting longing and regret. But it’s the overall concept that intrigues me; how then and now can be so poignantly married in one image – ingenious. Check it out.

I’m sure it would be lots of fun to test out the novel Dear Photograph concept with old photos. But I reckon the real challenge for us all is to ensure that we are making beautiful memories with our families that are worth capturing in the first place.