If you don't think photos are important ...

Wait until they are all you have left.

It really does make me sad that in these digital days when we are taking hundreds or should I say thousands of photos that we don't print and save them in photo albums like we used to.  

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were of those times when we would sit down with a photo album and relive the memories we made with family and friends - the fun we had on holidays, birthdays, pony club camps, backyard BBQ's with friends ... the list goes on. In particular, I remember two albums that my dad had made with photos of his family and his friends.  When I look though my photo albums it does sadden me to think that there is a whole new generation of children will not have photo albums like we have to look back on and relive the special moments of their lives.  Even more importantly they won't have the ordinary, every day memories that photos capture so very clearly .. and really it is those everyday memories and the people we make them with, that make each of our lives truly unique and extraordinary.  

Generally speaking when we are compelled to pick up our cameras to take a photo it is because we are seeing, living or experiencing something want to remember.  That photo, that one little rectangular (or sometimes square) image captures something so, so much bigger than its physical size.  What I struggle to understand is why we then leave those beautiful, joyful and sometimes heartbreaking memories trapped in a computer.
 
With all of that in mind, I'd really love you to take a couple of minutes to read this story from Missy Mwac.

Thank you Missy for granting me permission to share your photo and the memories it evokes. 

 "I was in kindergarten when this photo was taken.

It was the night of my first ballet recital. First and last, actually. I decided I didn’t have the patience for ballet, nor ballet for me. The photo was taken right before we headed out the door to a ballet performance on par with a train wreck.

But really, none of that matters. What does matter is the man who was holding me in the photo. That’s my dad and when I say I adored him, that doesn’t even come close to saying what he meant to me. He died many many years ago, much too early. And when I look back on our times together, a lot of it is fuzzy, much like trying to remember a dream.

Time has a way of erasing details, doesn’t it? And I guess that’s both good and bad. Good in that there are painful things we don’t always care to remember, but bad in that those things that mean so much to us slip so quickly from our minds. When I close my eyes and try to recall the faces of people I loved and lost, I see only the idea of them. But I will always remember the details of my father’s face — the twinkle in his eye, the cleft in his chin, the curve of his jaw.

Why?

Because somebody cared enough to take and print pictures like this. Somebody put on paper the face of this man I loved and because they did, I have it now, years later, to show my children…to remember. This moment right before my ballet recital is not a vague moment forgotten to the winds of time; it is alive and well thanks to a photograph.

So, please, print what you want to preserve; don’t put it off. If you don’t think photos are important now, wait until they are all you have left."

                                                                                                  -  Missy Mwac

 

We all take and preserve photos for different reasons.  I know why I scrapbook, but how about you -  what is your why? 

No matter what albums you use, whether you add lots of embellishments or are like me, a simple scrapbooker, the important thing is to print your photos and share your memories.  

Life is for living and memories are made to be shared -  Live, Crop, Share!

Noni


Shared with permission from Missy Mwac.  You can connect with Missy Mwac
on Tumblr or Facebook.