Special moments come and go so fast, it is always hard to catch that moment and it’s even harder to save it forever. You can keep track of things in a journal, you can tell your friends and family about it, but it’s just never the same effect. Gripping something that groves to the fit of your hand, feeling the weight of the strap on your shoulder as it sometimes hits the side of your hip, being prepared for things to catch. Taking it everywhere, ready for anything. These memories that are caught have so much more meaning. They capture every shade of color, every shadow and the smile on someone’s face. Having this at your fingertips can be one of the best tools for keeping memories. You never think about it in the moment, like why would I need to remember this? But those moments tend to be the ones that are most interesting to look back on.

My dad came up to me and told me that he had found a whole bunch of old photos of our family. I was really pretty excited to see what all the pictures were of. As my family sat behind be, I was clicking through all the hundreds of pictures from when my siblings and I were little. We were laughing, tearing up, remembering all the good times, bad times but all of them were so special. I clicked through the next album on the computer and it was full of home videos. We were all super joyous to now be able to watch videos. Dying of laughter and just filling the room with happiness, these videos were even more special. Most of the videos filled with my dad narrating, us doing something boring, and my mom talking, but at that moment I turned to my dad and asked, “Why don’t we do this anymore?”

This brings me to the point that we have so much technology these days, even more so than we did in the past. So why aren’t we constantly taking pictures or recording videos? We are going through our college careers, which most say is the “best time of your life,” so why wouldn’t you want to remember it? Our generation is going to make history, so let’s keep a record of it and remember it. This summer some things are going to change. I want to enjoy the moments naturally but I also want to be able to capture a piece of that, which can spark all of the feelings that were made in that exact point in time. Looking through the padded lens, slowly pressing the shutter to hear the click that follows, now it’s there forever, every detail and every emotion. Not only is it for us to keep but we have so many social media sites that allow for us to share pictures. We can share all of these moments on our page for all of our friends to see. So get up, go out and make some great times, but don’t forget the camera.