My Mom had an amazing memory for what people wore to various events. Why? Because she loved clothes and was interested in them, the color more so than the cut or style. Someone would mention a Christmas party 25 years in the past, and my Mom would say "Mrs. Hickerson wore a blue dress and Fern had on a red blouse." (Some neighbors were always Mr. or Mrs. while others were on a first name basis, for no apparent reason.)
She didn't need photos to remember these details, photos weren't in color then anyway. The memories were burned in her brain, in all the hues of the rainbow. Remembering what people wore was her super power. She was awful at taking photos, my Dad was the one behind the camera in our house, but her photographic memory for fashion served her just as well as albums full of snapshots.
Taking photos used to involve remembering your camera, having enough film, having a flash attachment, taking a decent photo which you didn't know turned out until you had the film developed, not destroying the film before you got it developed, taking the film in for processing, waiting to see how they turned out, being disappointed and/or thrilled how they turned out, then deciding whether to keep/toss/put in an album/shove in a box, or some other completely inefficient way to store precious memories.
Nowadays taking photos just means having your phone, having enough battery power and enough storage on your phone to take photos. So we take A. Lot. Of. Photos. And then we take another because someone had their eyes closed. Oops, another one because I look fat in that one. Another one. And one more just in case I lost a few pounds in the seconds since we took that fat photo. So many photos. Too many photos.
Last week we went on a whale watching voyage to the Farallon Islands. Which meant seeing a boat load of people's behinds as they leaned over the edge taking photos of whales, who probably think they look fat in all the photos. "It's mostly water weight." I took so many videos trying to film these amazing birds flying just above the water line, that by the time we came back into the mouth of the Golden Gate, I was out of battery. The fog had lifted, the sun was out and it was such a magical moment on a gorgeous day of an amazing city built on hills. And I was upset I didn't have any juice left on my camera.
Then it occurred to me, Just look at the city. Look at the water. And the bridge and the hills and the sea gulls and the skyscrapers and the boats and the beautiful day. Instead of looking at it through my camera, I looked at it. It was fabulous. I won't forget that moment in time. Just me, Ernst in his Elmer Fudd that, the spray of the water from the boat and a memorable afternoon. I need to run out of battery power more often.
As I embark on another trip, I'm trying to get a major portion of photos off my phone. I downloaded them to my computer first, so if heaven forbid I delete a screenshot of Vegan Tofu Stew it isn't lost forever. Or one of the millions of photos I have of my irises? I can't lose any of them! Or the Pinterest haircut shots that never seem to translate into the haircut I really want - those cannot be lost. Because it took a lot of work to find that perfect search of "Messy Parisian bob with whispy bangs for slightly wavy hair but a really low hairline in back. Low maintenance. Pretty. Easy." I many never get that exact match again, so it must stay on my computer with all the other grand ideas I had for my hair. That's how the digital age works. This stuff is forever.
Goal for the next coming year? Stop taking so many photos, or at least stop letting them clog up my phone. My plan is this - each Sunday evening go through my camera and delete all dumb photos, useless screenshots, duplicates, triplicates, blurry pictures, pictures of my dog being cute, and of course all photos that make me look less than toned and in fabulous shape. Wait, let's be realistic here, I'm keeping all the cute dog photos.
