My mom has buckets and buckets worth of family photos. A lot are from extended family, from when my grandparents were young, to when my mom was growing up and all her brothers and sisters, photos from family reunions and a ton of pictures from when my brothers were little. Less from when my sister and I were young, but that’s okay, by the time I was born my sister was an angsty 2 year old, my brothers were teenagers and misbehaved a lot.
I was thinking the other day about looking back at all those memories, the people I didn’t know or those that are no longer with us. Looking at the happy times with family and holidays. I’m glad to have those images. But, still, I wish there were more of them.
And so I got to thinking about how awesome and different it will be for my child(ren) when they are my age. Perhaps it’ll be different for them than others because I’m a photographer and a blogger, so by nature I take a ton of photos. But even for more ‘normal’ (non-photographers and non-bloggers) people, it’s so easy to take pictures nowadays. The biggest worry is that all images tend to be digital and so many of us don’t print those images. Personally, I carry a few disposable cameras in my purse and love using them still.
Scott and I are also starting a yearly photo memory book this year. I’m really excited to have real albums to hold in my hands with pictures and stories from throughout the year. I always loved looking through real photos, something tangible to hold. My dad often asks why I would want to print images, it’s all on a computer. Well sure, but digital images can be lost, they’re harder to look through and how often do we really go back and look through all our files? Especially with our young children. For one, we plan on limiting screen time for our children until they are older, but how fun is it as a toddler, or a young child to look back at photos from when you were born or in mommy’s tummy? I loved it and I hope my kids will too.
I hope in 10, 20…50 years they feel lucky and oh so happy that we’ve captured so many memories. Important ones like the day of their birth, their first trip to the zoo, to baking cookies with mommy and playing games with daddy to simply things like everyday smiles, cuddling in our pjs, making breakfast or watching the snow fall. I am happy and excited I can so easily capture all these moments and memories for them.
What about you? Do you capture pictures often? Do you ever print them? Do you wish you had more images from your childhood?
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