It seems to me that there are three big Kodak milestones in everyone’s life, and the moments in between are just details.
The big milestones are baby pictures, graduation pictures and wedding pictures.
Parents usually arrange baby pictures for their children, and it sometimes amounts to photographic torture, until they get that one picture with the child smiling just right.
Most of us don’t remember taking our baby pictures, but if you look back on those proofs, you can see that it was probably not fun. I saw that in mine; I was either crying or looking frustrated.
Many of us, as seniors, have just passed our second Kodak milestone – graduation cap and gown pictures.
This is when reality starts to sink in for a lot of teenagers. Wearing that symbolic cap and gown makes us realize that we finally made it to the end of high school.
We will look back on these cap and gown photos, as horrible as most of ours are, and feel a sense of accomplishment. The photos represent the knowledge and wisdom that we have acquired throughout the past 12 years. Graduation photos also serve as a reminder of the door into adulthood.
“Turn your head this way; don’t touch that cap. Face the camera and smile.” These are all the things the photographers say to us as they push this stupid looking, iconic flat hat on our anything-but-flat heads.
With that photo behind us, thousands of other seniors and I have but one Kodak milestone ahead: wedding photos. They represent the inception of another type of life where two live as one. And once again, many of us will wear some type of iconic hat for the historic photo – a wedding veil.
Hopefully we all will be fortunate enough to fulfill this wedding destiny, but personally, I hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon for me. I am in no hurry, and I have a lot of details to take care of for the time being.