Take More Pictures
Christopher | October 12, 2009
My father suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure a few weeks ago. He lost many files, including some old pictures from many years ago that he had scanned into the computer. Thankfully he sent me a copy of those on CD shortly after he scanned them in. I found that disc this morning.
I took a fun trip down memory lane, looking at two-decade old pictures of my cousins. I just visited many of them down in Arizona recently. Seeing how the years had changed us all invoked a very special kind of nostalgia that I haven’t experienced in years.
It reminded me of a couple of things. One is that we should be taking more pictures. You, me, and everyone you know. Carry a little pocket digital camera. Use the one on your phone. The best camera in the world is the one you have with you at the time. Capture those moments. They will be more special to you a decade or two down the road. Your kids, grandkids, parents, aunts, uncles, and friends will all appreciate it down the line as well.
It’s so easy to get caught up crossing off items on your to-do list or being frustrated with that guy in another state who isn’t doing his job properly. You can always be thinking about that party coming up this weekend or what you did last night. Pictures help you get back t those moments which really matter the most.
What a lovely find--was your father excited to find out
Lizz | November 10, 2009What a lovely find–was your father excited to find out that you’d found the lost photos?
I agree entirely! I’m usually the only person that carries around a camera (less so in the past few months, but I used to have a reputation for it). When I’ve taken a bunch of pictures at an occasion, people usually act annoyed/avoidant at the time, but then months/years later, when they see the photos again (either by stumbling across them or looking back through them), I ALWAYS get comments about how happy they are to have those photos, how much they love them, etc. I think that generally, people underestimate the significance of photography, period (both the effort behind artistic photography and the candid photography that captures special moments)–it’s a technology that is so readily available (hello camera phones!) that it ends up being overwhelmingly taken for granted.