Way back in the dark ages when I was at university, (not quite before our time, but in the next postcode) I spent three months in the United Kingdom on an extended holiday.
I have a thick photo album from that time - one of those horrible ones where you stick the photos to the pages and then smooth the clear plastic back over them. It contains around 250 photos and I often get it out and flick through the pages.
A single photo of two of my friends in a pub in Oxford reminds me of the day we all met up there from our various, separate travels. Three photos of Stonehenge prompt memories of the day I spent there with my Aunt and Uncle, and how it was the winter solstice (one of the only days of the year you were allowed to go right into the stones).
For three months, 250 photos is not a huge number of snapshots but, like the quote above says, they captured enough of the experience to lock it into my memory, ready to be triggered when I view the album.
Fast-forward 20-something years and I returned from a recent (three week) holiday with over 3,000 photos. Digital camera technology has made it just too easy to photograph every place, every occasion, every person from every angle imaginable.
But does that 'stop the moment running away'? Or is, in fact, the moment running away before we even realise it is there, as we're too focused on the digital screen?
Sometimes I have to remind myself to put.down.the.camera and experience what is right there in front of me.
Is life what happens when you're not looking through the viewfinder?
1 comment:
Certainly! Being thoroughly spoiled by HofNanu taking all the (and much better) photo's leaving me to totally indulge and thus thoroughly enjoy the experiences and still have fantastic records and memories for afterwards for the last 40'odd years, I suffered without that on my solo trip to China. I felt I had ro record it thoroughly to show him and while doing so fully realised how much I was losing out on. I've been much more appreciative of and more patient with his efforts since.
Post a Comment