Every once in a while, my family and I will pull out our photo albums and look back on birthday parties, our first dog, our old house, the sandbox in our backyard, and snow days building snowmen and sledding. We look at moments my brother and I don't even remember from our childhood but are so vivid for our parents. We have an endless amount of photo albums between us and our aunts and uncles and grandparents dispersed across the country. Each photo is accompanied by only one copy, which means there are most likely a lot of photos among my family of myself that I've probably never seen.
We no longer fill photo albums. There's no need in this digital age when everything can be saved to the cloud and accessed at a moment's notice. We don't pull out tangible pictures to show our friends and family when we see them, just a pixilated version of a moment. I don't think it's a bad thing to have instant access to your memories and favorite moments, but does this kind of access diminish how meaningful a photo can be? Can a picture be worth a thousand words when there can be a thousand of one picture?
There are many, many advantages to the digital age when it comes to photography. You can preserve moments forever. You get to see parts of the world you may never get a chance to visit. You can watch your little cousins across the country grow up through their parents' Facebook posts. You get to witness moments you have to miss in almost real time. You can take a picture of a recipe and send it to your grandma in Italy. In times of emergency, you can snap a photo of a license plate or someone's face. It's amazing the opportunities and capabilities that have risen because of digital photography.
However, there are two sides to everything. With a constant focus on capturing every moment, sometimes the authenticity of the moment slips away from us. Instead of a memory, we have a picture of a something we witnessed behind a lens. We can pose for a selfie after selfie until we like the outcome, then delete all the rejects. We can manipulate the angle of the camera to create the most flattering image of ourselves. We take pictures with beers in our hands surrounded by a crowd of people we don't know just so our social media followers can see that we know how to have a good time.
To have this kind of control over any moment in our lives makes us almost less responsible in our actions. We can miss our sister's art show because we can see pictures of it later. We can stay late at the office and miss family game night because our spouse will most definitely take pictures. Real life is happening, and we have the ability to physically miss it and use photos as a placeholder in our memories.
I think if we were to focus in on the intent behind our pictures, their quality and authenticity would change drastically. Don't think about the number of likes and shares it can get you. Take pictures of moments you want to share with your children. Take pictures with the intent of developing them and preserving their memory in a photo album. Take pictures of the times you don't want to forget, not to share them but for yourself. Keep special moments private. Some things are worth more when they're seen by your eyes only.
If we were to be conservative in the moments we capture, they would easily be worth more than a thousand words.
