Oh my gosh look at this gorgeous little baby. That was her at one year old. Oh and look at her here eating ice cream -all over her face. She was about three there. But now I can’t find her anywhere. Except on my cell phone!
Remember those days of large picture albums? The hours of perusing old memories. The pictures you’d scream over…
– “Seriously, did I really wear my hair like that? What was I thinking-or did I put my finger in a socket?”
– “Did we really ever have a convertible sports car now look at us clunking around in a SUV!”
– “Everyone thought she was a boy -We thought her hair would never grow in!”
Today, I have bookcases full of albums but they kind of stop at the year 2005. After that it’s almost like we cease to exist!
It was fun having those picture albums at a glance. Not that they don’t take up plenty of space-They do!! Not that they don’t fall apart. Not that they weren’t a pain to put together. But they are accessible. And they are sharable, and pass-around-able. And best of all, you can see the pictures, even if you don’t charge a battery!
And guess what -you can probably see some of those pictures even without hunting down your reading glasses- a torturous task! And for Sabbath observers, who are forbidden to even touch their cell phones, the Sabbath was a great time to sit and look through old albums and bond with family or friends. Now families need to buy even more books and games to keep busy on the Sabbath. Let’s just hope the kindle doesn’t replace actual books and the industry continues to make board games!!
And get this, though those picture albums could fade a bit, at least the pictures didn’t disappear altogether, as it does on ‘snapchat’. A moment captured a moment gone!
I’ll admit, that it’s nice not to have to schlep you camera around and to still be able to capture an image. But half the time I’m on my phone when the opportunity arises so I wind up taking a picture of my ear. I have a whole series entitled my ear from every angle. If you’d like to see it I can send it to you.
Also there was something fun about those adjustable lenses on those fancy cameras. You felt so professional turning them around and around and setting up the shot. Now why would you bother? You can change it after the fact. You can change your eye color, crop off parts of the picture, or Photoshop it altogether! In fact I’m not even sure why people take pictures anymore. No one looks like themselves by the time they are done.
And can we just discuss selfies?? People’s arms are just not long enough for all the people that they try to stuff in to a “selfie”. And no one really cares how they look or if the whole shot is distorted or just one eye or half their face got in cause -After all it’s a selfie! Special distortive license exits there.
The one good thing I can say about photography these days is that it’s the one safe act of terrorism around. Everyone’s photo bombing – but it’s all in good fun!
Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com<mailto:rivki@rosenwalds.com