Creating a Nostalgic Childhood

“Nostalgia (n): a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”

Imbuing our images with the feelings of nostalgia can be a powerful tool in our creative toolbox as photographers. But producing photos that hark back to happy times with wistful affection takes a little more effort than just putting together an old fashioned scene or dressing in prairie dresses for a photoshoot. Creating a nostalgic childhood and a catalogue of nostalgic images for your children means looking back, yes, but also forward.

For me, it means I have to purposefully consider what I want their childhood to look like, to feel like, to be. Then, I have to make it happen; then, I can photograph it. Taking photos in the laundry line or amid a million cookies or pumpkins etc isn’t going to mean anything to you or to them if you don’t actually hang your laundry on the line as part of your weekly chores. Or do annual cookie bakes, or cultivate (or collect) your pumpkin array as part of a special memory. These kinds of images taken outside our own experiences can be beautiful. but they won’t be nostalgic.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you start an off-grid homestead. Or disavow anything our ancestors didn’t enjoy like…. running water or the internet. I’m not even suggesting that you get chickens or start baking your daily bread. Consider for what YOU feel a sentimental longing. Maybe it’s little joys from your own childhood (like Saturday morning cartoons, or sunset bike rides). Maybe it’s things that actually have never been a part of your life (like loving on pets or gardening). These are also things you can look forward to as part of your children’s life and memories. Or maybe, it is baking bread and hanging laundry on the line. Whatever it is requires two things: thoughtful considerations, and action.

You will never take nostalgic photos if you don’t know to what you feel nostalgia. And then you have to incorporate that feeling into your everyday life. Careful consideration is needed to really brainstorm either what you want to incorporate into your photos (and lives) from your own memories and also from your own dreams. This is what I mean when I say you need to look backwards, but also forwards. Pulling ideas from your own experiences and your own core will imbue your photos much more heartily than seeking inspiration from the grid.

And, you need to act to bring these memories and dreams into your current vernacular of everyday living. I’m just at the beginning planning stages of a series I’m going to put together of overhead images featuring some of our handmade and homegrown wares from this year. I’ve been working hard lately to teach myself to make all the breadstuffs we eat. Therefore, I am excited to work my shiny egg-washed loaves and rolls into a photo because they are an integral part of this season of our lives. And the resulting image will mean something to me and to my children. This is because bread baking is a huge part of our everyday life.

If I just laid a bunch of bought bread and baguettes on the floor and stuck a child in the mix, I think it’s pretty safe the say that the image wouldn’t convey the same feelings. It wouldn’t evoke the same longing for the smell of fresh baked bread. Or the echoes of little feet running to the kitchen for the first buttery bite.

Nostalgia is powerful, yes. But it isn’t cheap. The cost is building the memories to base the pictures on in the first place. But once you do, you’ll never go back.

Learn more about Creating a Nostalgic Childhood in Sarah’s amazing course, Nostalgic Childhood!

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