Shutterbugs and Family Mugs

The advent of the digital camera was truly one of the greatest things that has come down the pike since....well, sliced bread. Since it is now one of the easiest pieces of technology to own considering that almost every cell phone comes with one it is easy to say it has changed our lives.

Gone are the days of having to run out and buy film, shoot it...make sure you have the right kind, enough and the right kind of light. Then once you are done shooting the film you have to actually take it somewhere and have it developed...and then remember to pick it up. All those bits and pieces...it is any wonder that digital has made our lives so much simpler?

But not only that, we now have the ability to take those pictures and get rid of the duds. Those horrid pictures that we would think to ourselves, "Well, no one is ever going to see that one!" and off to the trash can it would go. Or we would chuckle and think that we had the perfect chance to bribe someone with that photo that was going to embarrass them to no end. Now we have the ability to shoot the same shot over and over till we get just what we want. They are perfect. They are frameable. They are better than school photos or our wedding photos in many cases. Hail the advent of the digital.


And yet...I will stroll back through the photo albums of my family photos looking though each picture, laughing at the memories. I recall this, think on that, remembering not just what happened in the pictures but a myriad of other things attached to it. You see when we see those old photos we don't just see the people standing there and think, "Oh yes, this was Christmas, 1979." We look at the clothes. We look at the furniture....really; did anyone ever think that a velveteen all over brown floral print couch was a good interior design idea? We remember nicnacks, clothing, and haircuts. So much. Too much. We sometimes laugh until we have tears. This is the good stuff. Not the perfectly framed up picture.

People do not look and think, "well isn't that picture well thought out and centered, we did a really nice job Christmas of 91." No they think to themselves, "Good god, what was I thinking wearing MCHammer pants in gold metallic to Christmas dinner?" We want memories, not catalog photos.

I can't remember the last time I printed out a photo, other than to frame. I haven't held a stack of pictures in my hands that weren’t a decade old in perhaps five years. But I recall, going to the store to pick them up and being so excited that I had to open them standing right there in the store to see each and every one of them. They were treasures to me; the good, the bad and the ugly. I kept them all. Now only the excellent are kept. Sure my ability to grab the perfect photo has grown. But the shameful thing is, if anyone wants to see pictures of my kids I have to pull out my phone, not my wallet.

I wonder how another generations will look back on this one and wonder if we had become minimalistic, almost fundamental in our approach, sure we cut away the clutter.....but did we cut away the personality while we were at it?

Me? I will take my family photos with a dash of humiliation, a smidge of goofiness and just a touch of that awkwardness that somehow tells people when they look at us that "yeah...they aren't inbred...but they look like they are related."

I am off to buy some Polaroid film.


P.S. My apologies to the above family, which is not mine. You suffice because you happen to have the same couch as my grandmother...as did probably half the US at some point between 74-86. If I happen to get around to scanning a picture I will exchange it.