Story Gathering: The Coming Together of Shared Memories

Which comes first, the photo or the memory? It’s a bit like the chicken and the egg thing.

In my case, it was a strong memory of one particular photograph that came first.

In my usual storytelling, story sharing way, while preparing a storyboard, a series of photographs arranged digitally to tell a story with Ponga.com, it played on me that I was missing that one very important specific photograph. A photograph that was vivid in my memory, in living colour.

The missing photograph was taken in the summer of 1966, a very long time ago and I have zero memory of the day it was taken, but the photograph left a lasting memory.

In my desire to inspire my siblings to come down memory lane with me, back to 1966, and fill in some holes in my memory, I needed that photograph.

So, I used my Ponga powers and sent out a call to my sisters. One of them had to have it. From an already shared photograph, I simply asked the question. Asking a question from within Ponga.com

And within literally minutes, thanks to time zone differences, I had my missing photograph.

Now the storyboard was complete and the story gathering began.

Permanent.org, or more to the point, the power of Permanent.org lies with much more than just sharing a link to a photograph.  The power is in the linking directly to a downloadable copy that can be included in my digital storyboard.

A click here and a download there, I’m able to begin gathering the memories, filling the story, and remembering the day.

Creating pathways to family memories and tying it all together is a blast.  The simplicity of connecting Permanent.org, Ponga.com and a little Canva design magic, this is a storyteller’s, a story sharer’s, playground.  

Whether it’s single photographs, documents and diaries, or a family tree filled with everything that you could imagine, this process is a winner for memory gathering and storytelling.