Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Digital Age

Last week, I sat at our computer with my daughter on my lap and my mother-in-law in the chair next to me. We were looking for the video clips I had shot of Miss M singing in the cherub choir. We had to search through thousands of photos because I couldn't remember the dates that I had shot video.

"Wow, look at all those pictures," my mother-in-law commented.

"Yeah, I take a lot of pictures."

Most of the time I don't delete the "bad" ones either.

There was a Sign of the Times segment on Nightline last week that commented on the danger of extinction of the "bad" family photos with the popularity of the digital camera.

I can see their point, although I purposely keep most of the "bad" photos I've taken of my kids because these photos tell a story that the "great" photos do not. They tell the story of all the goofy faces, poses, crying fits, etc that my children tried out throughout the attempted photo shoot. Those "bad" shots often show much more personality than the perfect shots (those are very rare anyway!)

Of course, I end up with 500 million photos because I keep them all. I don't print the photos very often but I am a bit compulsive about burning them to DVD quite often. I wish I had the money and the time to print all the photos I've taken, but it wouldn't be practical anyway. Where would I store all the photo albums?

Obviously the digital age has its positive and negative aspects but I'm still surprised when someone mentions they don't have a digital camera. I think the ability to take so many photos without added cost (if you don't print them all!) by far outweighs any drawbacks.

An added bonus has been the opportunity for my kids to become the photographers. I love to see their perspectives of what is a photo-worthy subject. If I had to pay for film, I'd never let them experiment and I'd miss seeing their interpretations of the world.

Their "bad" shots are priceless to me.


*It just occurred to me that I completely missed commemorating my first blogiversary...it was May 12th. Oops.

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Mom Thumb said...

I have a closet full of photo albums because there were no digital cameras when my kids were little. If there had been, I would have a closet full of DVDs! Happy Blogiversary!

Kara said...

You are right-- that bad photos are almost as good as the good ones....unless, of course, they are of yourself. I hate bad shots of me! I use our film camera more because I am more likely to get the pics developed. Michael always has our digital and the pics NEVER get developed. If I relied on him, I'd never have my photo albums up to date.

Sandy said...

Can your kids possibly have any BAD photos????

Happy belated anniversary!

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

I agree. I had to buy an external USB hard drive just because I couldn't fit any more pictures on my computer!

Good job on the blogversary. Most people don't make it a full year. You know now, of course, you're a blogger for life.

Anonymous said...

Happy blogiversery! Your kids are so cute!

 
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