For some reason, I don't take a lot of pictures. That isn't what my phone will tell you, but when it comes to capturing some moments it's something that I am just not very good at. For instance, I am not sure that I have a photo of my whole band together. There are several of some of us, or one of us in the shot, but I can't recall ever seeing or being in a photo with all of us.
Family photos used to get booked at department stores like Sears. Blake has never experienced that. Alex, Abbie, and Luke all went through it at a young age with individual shots, but somehow the invention of the camera phone seemed to dissolve those places with the swirly blue backdrops. Relying on yourself to take great pictures has never been easier, but if you are like me, you often get caught up in the moment. Maybe that isn't a bad thing either...being present and just soaking it into memory? The problem that I have found with that is the old USB drive upstairs gets a few corrupt files that just don't ever resurface. A photo can reboot that system and get things going again.
In a time when you don't have to pay to have your pictures developed....thats right kids, you used to have to wait to see the picture until the kind people at Japan Camera had enough time to develop the film and hand you your out of focus pictures....there is no excuse for not having memories captured. My family has a huge family gathering at my parents place nearly every August. The space they have in their yard is quite large and is covered in tents; every room inside is used with either the beds that occupy it or a blow up mattress on the floor. Kids are running everywhere throughout the day, people are laughing and carrying on; boat rides, swimming, bbq's and campfires. I may have a couple of pictures on my phone of that. Luckily though, there are people that are outstanding with their cameras. One of my cousin's who comes to this event every year, captures the whole weekend somehow without us even realizing it. Big thanks to Kayla for having the presence of mind to realize that some of us may need our memories jogged...and please delete the one of me wearing speedo's and a cowboy hat.
Christmas is another time of year, where many gather and again my first thought isn't to grab the phone and start taking pictures. Maybe it's a generational thing too? Kids now all have a camera everywhere they go. When I was raised, you rarely heard a guy say, "Hey fellas, lets all get in a picture". We were too busy living. Let someone else take the picture. In fact, it was almost frowned on that our fun was getting interrupted in order to sit still enough to get one.
You realize you don't take enough pictures when you go to social media to post one of you and said person because that is where many of our photo albums now reside. Gone are the days when you perused a book of actual photos on a coffee table that were stuck under a piece of sticky plastic film cementing them into place. Now its scrolling through the social media feed. There was something to be said about holding a picture in your hand without scrolling through all the comments and getting distracted by the clickbait video of the puppy and the random strangers falling off a skateboard provided by Facebook.
Perhaps with the combination of 35mm now essentially extinct, and the immediate desire to roll through social feeds as soon as the eyes land on a hand held device; there are less people capturing those moments? Maybe the posed pictures are a thing of the past? Kids these days go on "streaks" with their friends on snapchat by sending a photo back and forth each day...of the ceiling or some obscure portion of a room. The equivalent shot would have been cursed and thrown out for wasting film with an accidental trigger pull back in the day. Could you imagine handing that to your friend and saying here...this is for you. HA!
There are some things we should take less photos of...like our dinner plates. That's another one that would be funny to receive as an actual printed picture. Oh look, Martha sent pictures from her vacation...and here is a picture of pork chops and rice on day 14.
I guess I am rambling a little here, but my point to all of this is to remember to take some quality photos. It's easy to remember to take a picture at Disney. It's the everyday that passes that the majority of our lives are made up of that escape the lens. Get a picture of you and your kids playing a board game. Don't get in a rush when your spouse wants to capture the moment on a random hike. There was a big fan of a hockey team that I used to work with named Cowboy Jim. He was an individual that needed full time care and showed up everyday to the hockey office just to sit with the staff. One day he attended the press conference about a trade or a signing or something and the press were invited. The newspaper photographer walked up to take a picture of the GM, and Cowboy stood up in the audience and yelled out..."Hey Buddy...Take my picture will ya!?". I wish I had a copy of that today. Be like Cowboy...get the picture.