Prompt #19

If we are to be at all invested in social networking, we can’t go by a single minute without knowing what people are eating for lunch, what scandalous things they did Friday night, or what cute thing (and, yeah, it was cute) a cat did. But these images are often fleeting. They can be quickly scrolled past on a screen, safe from permanence and tangibility.

In 300 words or less, write about a single photograph. Perhaps it captures a dad in way-too-short shorts double-fisting some Budweisers, or maybe the character is looking at his or her own glamorous portrait taken during a long gone era. Maybe the character found an ancient daguerreotype of a mustachioed dreamboat while searching through ancestral relics. The photo, found smothered beneath other photographs in a thrift store heap, might simply capture a landscape. How was the photo found or received? Is the image alarming or memorable? Is the character changed by the photo as an object or by the image captured? Does the character engage with the subject? Think about how that sort of insight to a moment in time can change (or not change) a person or events.

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