I've never really been one for taking and keeping pictures. As a child I adopted the particularly expensive habit of video and trading card games, and therefore put most money and christmas requests towards those, which made sure I never really owned a camera. I've had a few cheap ones in the past, all which I've lost (and were non digital). When at parties it never really occurs to me to stop for photo ops, nor do I go wild over the concept of a camera being aimed at me.
The concept of taking still photos, or movies, of the events happening in my life in order to document them seems to be fairly unimportant to me. I have accrued dismally low amounts of visual memorabilia during the first 21 years of my life; arguably the portion I'd want to document the most (considering all the damage I'm doing to my memory these days). I'm assuming later in life I'd love to sit down and look at pictures of people and things from earlier in my life and reminisce; something I enjoy doing well enough as it is.
However, my photo library is decidedly non-existent despite the full knowledge that I very well may regret it later. I may have been more motivated had everyone else around me not had cameras, but as it stands I'm content looking at other people's pictures. Unfortunately those pictures will not be around forever; facebook will eventually go out of business or lose a large majority of it's database, people will delete their photos or lose them in tragic HDD accidents, or generally just not care enough to carry those photos with them.
And whose to blame them? A large majority of pictures used for nostalgic purposes are fairly mundane. People saying cheese and smiling. Where is the appeal in that? For now it's a great reminder of the events of the past few years ("hey that was a sweet party!" "Oh man I can't believe he had a mohawk!" "haha remember when we Eiffel towered that monkey?") Unfortunately, the locations and circumstances of most of the photos I look at now will be lost to me in a few years. They will simply be a reminder of the people I knew, and the smile I could produce at a moments notice.
If I really cared, I could take slightly more "real" pictures. Pictures of places, people, things that I enjoy. More candid, less planned. Snapshots of my life in reality.
I realize that this may be a common thought and one that has been brooded over quite a bit, which is most likely why photography has such a following.
On the opposite side of things, the side I usually line up on, I think that maybe it's not the worst thing in the world. I remember the things that are memorable, taking with me the lessons those things have taught me, and I forget the rest in favor of more admirable pursuits. While remembering and appreciating the past is very important both for emotional stability as well as self improvement, I believe that only goes so far. At some point attention has to be paid to the present, not to mention the future. It's hard to develop as a person when you brood over the past.
Plus, it's a lot more fun when a memory suddenly comes rushing back unannounced.
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2 comments:
i miss AL the monkey. good times. (notice how that picture flooded my memory back!)
So I recently had to delete photos to free up space on my hd, and I found a lot of old photos and turned up some old memories that I never would have remembered had I not taken them. So yeah, maybe a memory is worth more than a photo, but photos serve a pretty important job. By taking the photo, it helps me remember the event, taking a photo gives you one more mental snapshot because you remember the process of standing together or organizing the photo or whatever. Then later on the photo can serve to jog said memory. As a photographer I may be biased, but I think the actual process of "This is worthy of taking a photo, let us get together" helps solidify memories and the photos themselves will continue to jog those. The older we get, the more we'll be needing such reminders.
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