Scattered Moments in Time

I’m a technology curmudgeon. I’m hanging on to my dumb phone for dear life. I buy CDs and books and think the e-book is the devil’s plaything. I order physical DVDs from Netflix. I peruse Facebook a few times a week and that is the extent of my social media use.

Another technological development that vexes me now and then is the digital camera. Although I have embraced the digital camera for the most part, I do miss the excitement of taking a roll of film to a film processor, and having to wait for the results. It was always a thrill to pick up developed film rolls. Sometimes I wouldn’t remember what was on a roll. Maybe I would take 10 photos of my friend’s bat mitzvah, and then take some photos of the lilacs in my yard a few weeks later. And a few weeks after that, take photos of my friends studying for a test. By the time I finished the roll, I would have forgotten about the lilac photos.

So yes, the digital camera is great. You can immediately look at the photo you’ve taken, and take another if you’re not satisfied. The digital camera can hold hundreds (thousands?) of photographs at a time.

BUT.

I can’t remember the last time I printed photos from a digital camera regularly. Maybe I never have? I have definitely printed out photos from big trips or events. But the everyday random photos? Who knows.

When I think of the hundreds of photos I have on my computer in random folders, and the four or five DVDs I have that are filled with hundreds of archived photos from online galleries, a wave of panic passes over me. Thousands of moments, scattered. Thousands of memories, now forgotten.

I found this article and learned that I was not alone in my panic.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/25/205425676/preserving-family-photos-in-digital-age?utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130730

This article has motivated me to tackle my scattered photos and organize them—maybe even print some out. To reclaim my moments and rekindle my memory. When was the last time you printed out a photo?