Shoebox Memories: Personal documentaries and the joy of baseball
There's a time in every kid's childhood when he or she meets a Larger-Than-Life character and is in total awe.
Maybe it's a shopping mall Santa, an amusement park mascot or the magician who comes to perform at the local library. Or for boys and girls raised to be sports fans, it's the thrill of first seeing your favorite ballplayers up close and personal!
FANTOGRAPHY is a new book project by former San Diego Padres executive Andy Strasberg, who's been taking fan photos of his favorite players since he was a kid.
That's him at Yankee Stadium with home run champ Roger Maris above.
He's now on a quest to connect with like-minded fans to share similar baseball memories and has some intriguing observations about how the digital age has changed the way we treat the photographic record of our lives:
"Every day hundreds of baseball 'snapshots' taken before the digital age are lost as the original owners pass away and their belongings become trash. Ironically, for different reasons, the same fate is happening to today's digital baseball pictures. Once a snapshot is taken by a baseball fan with a digital camera/phone they are downloaded to a computer, never printed, and almost always forgotten."
You can submit your favorite fan photo at Fantography here.
Strasberg is specifically seeking contributions from non-professional photographers of players when they are NOT playing the game -- or other classic ballpark scenes from the majors or minors that capture "a poignant personal moment."
He's looking for "a long forgotten player emerging from the team hotel to board the bus to the game. Or a picture of a player in his baggy flannel uniform pausing near the stands for a quick portrait, with a sign advertising the local beer sponsor behind him. Maybe a cell phone snapshot of a rookie having a late night snack after a victory."
At Reel Profiles, we share Strasberg's philosophy about focusing on some of life's little moments that certainly don't qualify as typical milestones. Sometimes, interviewing your grandfather about a favorite childhood amusement park or his favorite place to sit at the baseball game might generate more engaging memories than a major historical event.
Let's face it, there are plenty of places you can see the footage of the Moon Landing, but where can you hear your grandparents or parents share their amazement on that day-- taking you back to the moment through their eyes?
All too often in personal documentaries, tribute videos and family history projects, the focus is on births, graduations, career achievements, weddings and deaths. Sometimes the best biographical stories surprisingly come from the "trivial" moments in between!