Straight narration would be something like...
"It was a photo of his dad. The old man had always looked for reasons to go fishing, no matter the season or time of day. He'd spent his last years with a hand shovel always within reach so he could excavate nightcrawlers for bait. Even when he couldn't go to the lake, he sat on his porch with a rod in his hand, casting a weight across the lawn and reeling it back."
Character thoughts would be...
"It was a photo of his dad. John leaned back and studied the framed picture, recalling his dad's constant trips to the lake, his digging for nightcrawlers whenever he went outside, his constant practice with the fishing rod. John could still hear the fishing reel in his mind, a descending whirl each time his father cast a weighted line across the lawn while sitting on the porch. In his last years the old man had lived at the lake, even when he was stuck at home."
Not the best examples, but the first is straight narration, and would qualify as telling, the sort of information some people prefer be delivered in other ways, like dialogue. The second is character thoughts, a flashback for the reader.