Pictures are forgotten memories...

Many years ago, taking a picture meant more than catching a glimpse of your life to be shared with the world.  It was considered a privilege and almost an honour to be able to immortalize a sweet memory.

Having a collection of photos was the only way you could relive your vacations, the birthday party of your friend or the first time you bought a car.  They were stored securely under the bed, shielded from any scratches and were manipulated preciously...

Being able to keep a freezes view of what you witnessed was limited in many ways.  It was hard to take a good picture with the hardware available.  Nothing was automatic, no colour correction, no anti-red eyes, no cropping, no stabilization process.  Any picture could be easily too dark, over-exposed, blurred or out-of-frame.

The price you had to pay for a decent camera was added to the price paid for a good quality film.  And then, you had to pay for the development process, extras cod having doubles (copies), larger photos, and more, and more...  Taking pictures was pricey.

So whenever you wanted to take a picture, you were always considering a few facts before proceeding: 

• does it really matter to have a picture of that event
• will I ever look at that picture in the future
• do I have enough film left in my camera
• how much have I spent in picture in the last few weeks?  Can my budget handle it?

A picture was a whole process of investing your time and money, trying to make it worth for every penny... Remember that on a 12 shots/film, you were ending up with 6-7 goods ones?

When friends and family were home, there was always a time to get those photo albums from under the bed.  Everybody would round up in the living room and pass around the photo albums, everyone having a view of your past memories.  And do not forget about the stress felt when one would remove a photo from the album to have a better look at it...  Don't fold it, put it back at the same place, be careful...

Pictures were precious as diamonds and fragile as a flower.  We were happy sharing them, but not too much...

Those days a long gone now.  With the current technologies and devices, we have stored thousands and thousands of meaningless photos.  Nobody actually looks at them if they're not shared on Facebook or Twitter.    We have so many pictures of our lives that we don't even want to look at them any more, too busy looking at pictures of strangers over the web.

They cost nothing, they often mean nothing, they are forgotten as fast as the next one is taken.
Pictures worth nothing now.  

Stop, open your old albums and dig in.  Take the time to remember what was put aside and forgotten...