'Tags' are not forever.

  

It's really strange when 'moments' hit - very often when you least expect them.

So there I was last night sitting in the cinema watching The Dressmaker (and I promise, no spoilers here). It was early on in the movie - Tilly was pleading with her mother to help her remember something from her childhood- I'll just leave it at that. It was quite powerful and in that moment I had a flashback to a very funny commercial I had seen just a couple of days earlier for Canon Pixma printers.

<Stick with me, there is a point to this.>

The two scenes in my mind made me think about my own photo albums and the stories they contain. I then thought about the sheer volume of photos we take these days thanks to the digital revolution and cringed at how few are actually printed. Then I thought about my friends and family with small children who post their memories on forums like Facebook, but who may not print those photos and may not put the printed image into an album with the words that tell the story.

It is all the little moments along the way that make our lives our own and each and every one of us who we are. So what happens if the social media servers stop saving our memories? What happens when your computer hard-drive fails. What will our children have to look back on to remember their childhood? What will we have as we age and maybe can't quite remember the things we used to know.

Photo albums. Yes, photo albums ... with real printed photos and the written word. They are the books that tell of our lives, loves, losses and triumphs.

Not 'tags' ... photo albums.