Remembering or Forgotten?
Since I happen to like taking photographs more than is probably healthy, I was very quick to volunteer to be "Picture Mom" for cheer.
Hey. Everybody has to volunteer for something. I figured I should volunteer for something that I actually liked doing. SO BACK OFF, YO.
Anyway.
The thing about being Picture Mom is that it is an exercise in patience. No matter how many times I reposition myself, no matter how long of a lens I use, no matter what I do, I end up with this one scenario. It's the scenario where I'm sitting there with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment, but I can't actually take a photograph of a single one of the cheerleaders because a parent is standing in my line of vision taking a picture with his or her cell phone.
It never fails. It happens EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Somebody stands at the fence that separates the bleechers from the field, and they shoot video or take pics for several minutes on end.
For the record, the scenario doesn't make me mad. It makes me sigh. It makes me sigh for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being that if *I* can't see, neither can those around me. We're all there to watch our kids and it really is lame when we can't do exactly that.
But the bigger reason it makes me sigh is because of how I view cell phone photography.
Now, chill out. I'm not about to diss cell phones. In fact, I think there are times when you can take a better photo with a cell phone than you can with a professional quality camera.
Rather, the thing that makes me twitch is what happens to *my* cell phone pics. Every once in a while I'll start to run out of room on my phone and it will be time to clean house. I scroll through photos, picking and choosing whether to delete or move to an online storage place (usually DropBox or Flickr, in case you're curious). I do a fairly good job of sorting and moving and deleting what should be deleted, but then that's it. That's the last thing I do with the pictures from my cell phone.
I don't get prints.
I don't make photo books.
Nothing.
The photos exist digitally somewhere which may or may not be accessible in 20 years, but that's it.
Is that the same for most people? Or do people who rely fully on their cell phones to capture memories take the time to get prints, make photo books, or otherwise find a way to save their photos and make them enjoyable for eternity? It seems that if that great photo you took of your kid exists only on your phone -- a phone you probably will replace in two years -- maybe it's like it doesn't exist at all.
All of those photo albums our parents made were a precious gift. And now I'm going to make it a point to make several for Alexis because, really, remembering those things only works if I remember them somewhere she is guaranteed to be able to see in several years.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Reader Comments (7)
I print my favorite Instagram pictures through printstagram.com and hang them on 2 frames from pier 1 that have clothes pins on them, so they're easy to change out.
I'm probably the unusual one. I backup all my phone pictures to Shutterfly and print out the ones I like to put in a scrapbook.
Shutterfly makes it easy though. Every once in a while they send out a limited time get 100 prints free offer so I don't even have to pay for my prints! I got 6 copies of all the pictures of my nephew's graduation and only paid a couple of bucks shipping.
I print a picture from every day of the year and put it in an album for the year. 4×6 prints, slipped into photo sleeves, batch printed about every 6 weeks. Those photos can be taken on my dslr, iPhone or even Scott's iPhone, I simple choose my favorite picture from each day. All of my pictures are tagged in my photo catalog and I tag one from each day with project365-2013 when I upload them so they are easily to select (crop if necessary) and upload for print.
My kids LOVE looking through the albums so it is worth it.
I am like you. I rarely print out photos. I usually print stuff if it is for a gift or is a child needs a photo for school. I have the pix on my laptop and backed up on an external drive, and I do have some on CDs that I backed up a long time ago when I had to swap machines. Some are at shutterfly and walgreens (from being printed) but not nearly all of them. Likely I should upload them to online storage just to be safe, huh. I don't take a ton of pix with my phone, but when I do they are usually uploaded to Instagram or Facebook. And they are on the SD card, so I can plug that into my laptop and copy those to my backup external storage too. Tho if my son's new phone is any indication, SD storage on cell phones (Android phones anyway) may come to an end in the near future.
Sign up with a free cloud service like drop-box. My photos are automatically uploaded to my dropbox account, so I can delete them from the phone, but still have a copy saved.
I have struggled with this myself. Since having Zach, I think I have maybe 5 pictures of him taken with my "real" camera, the rest are from my cellphone. So far my strategy is to download all my phone pics every few weeks, then import them into my Light room and then... someday I will edit them & order prints. Like maybe in 2015 when I'm finally caught up on life? (HAAAAA RIIIIGHT)
when i was younger i loved, like CRAZY LOVED, going through aunt kathy's photo albums and talking about the events and people. i need to start organizing. and printing.
thanks for the reminder.