in the world of 140 character updates, and overgrams, we are inundated with photos. don’t get me wrong, i’m in the business of capturing memories and preserving them for all time, but i think we’ve lost some of the magic of it. bear with me and hopefully i don’t sound like an old fart 🙂
maybe this is aging me, but do you remember when you used to have to think about a photo before you took it? each picture cost actual money, film, processing and making prints (or doubles if you liked giving them away to friends like i did) and that added up. we were careful, we thought about what we wanted to capture and you only retook a picture if you really wanted to preserve that memory and just in case the first one may not have worked. and even then it was always a gamble! you might have had the camera on the wrong setting, or bought the wrong speed film, or had a light leak, or accidentally exposed the film and when you got all the photos back, they were bad. remember that?? remember that sinking feeling when you just spent $5 hard earned dollars and the photos were black, each one of them!
now we live in a world where nothing is left uncaptured. you have all the time in the world to make sure you get it right. you can find photos or videos of everything and anything. moments aren’t pure anymore. we can’t sit and watch a moment and enjoy it and soak it in. we need to be constantly capturing it. now we grab our phones and get what we can because we can and why? so we can go back and enjoy the moment later? yes, there is value in that, otherwise i wouldn’t be in business or have a passion for it in the first place. but when will we have time to go through all that stuff? i think about the hundreds of photos i have from my film life to the thousands upon thousands i have from my digital life. when would i even have time to revisit all of those moments? why can’t i have one photo to remember a moment, isn’t that enough?
now that i have a daughter i’m especially aware of my phone time, checking instagram, facebook and taking photos and videos of her…she’s laughing, grab the camera, she’s blowing spit bubbles, grab the camera, she’s being cute (ALL THE TIME) grab the camera!!! i am torn between wanting to give her memories in the future (because i have tons of home movies and i am so happy that my mom took the time to do that for us, i love them) and just watching her laugh in person and not from behind a screen.
i love stories, and i love to tell stories, especially through images. sometimes an image or film tells the whole story, and sometimes you need the one photo and the 1000 words. how will i teach my daughter this balancing act? right now on instagram i’m posting a photo a day. most days i only take that one photo a day. it encourages me to think about what i want to post, and think about what i want to take, or not take photos of. i plan on doing yearly videos for kids, and so i’m trying to also be conscious of what i already have. do i need 50 videos of her laughing or just 2. how much do i really want to go through later. it is so tough though because it’s so addicting right now to take photos and videos and look at them all the time. i have to ground myself with the fact that baby girl is 5 months old…FIVE months only!! and i have a gazillion photos already.
i’m taking it down a notch, and trying to be in the moment…and maybe spend some time going through and actually reminiscing about some past moments…
i feel like i always say this, but i really am going to try to blog more…more travel…more projects…and more stories…because if you can’t have time to look through the past photos/videos and reminisce, then what was the point of taking them?