No, I am not talking about "Back To The Future." I am sorry to break the news that I actually do not have a secret time machine that will take you back and forth to any time period you can imagine. However, I do have the one thing that will get you the closest to time travel you ever possibly could attain: photography.

Memories are never guaranteed. They come and go as they please, and they are often unreliable. Memories are only worth as much as they can be remembered. Although they are often held dearly, they come up short of expectations time and time again. Time is so precious, and the way we spend it defines who we are. Therefore, I want to be able to remember the time I have spent and, more so, the people I have spent it with.

Photography, whether posed or completely spur of the moment, is like a time capsule. It holds the exact day, hour, minute and second the photograph was taken. It also holds the person who is in the photo the exact way they were in that moment. So, when you want to go back and experience these times again and you don’t happen to have a time machine handy, photos can attempt to fill the void. Photographs are a small key that can take you back in time, if only for a moment, with loved ones and loved places to experience them once more. A photograph can hold so much, from happiness to heartbreak, so it should be treasured. The small portion of frozen time can take you back at any moment when the memories fail you.

In this technological day and age, you are never more than five feet from a camera of some sort at all times. When you are out with your family, take a photo. They are only going to be that age for that one day, and one day, they will no longer be here. When you go to the beach with your dog, take a photo. They will one day be too old to run in the sand. When you are out with your friends, take a photo. People have a way of leaving us sooner than we expect, but the footprints they leave on our hearts can be cherished forever and brought to life through photographs. Even when the people in the photographs change, the memory never does, and that is the beauty of it. Nothing in life is guaranteed. Although we don’t realize it, we don’t have as much time as we think. You never think the last time is ever going to be the last time. You think you have forever, but you never do. So, when you run out of forevers, and when you run out of time, you have photographs to fall back on. The small freeze frame of time may not mean much in the moment, but once we don’t have it anymore, it will mean everything. These are the moments to remember forever, so don’t forget to snap a photo.