All that is good and well, but sometimes it feels like experiences are somehow being worked in between photo sessions. Selfies, food, embarrassing videos that will live on long after they are no longer funny...we've become a society obsessed with visual preservation of life, at the expense of really living it. How much did I miss of what was going on around me the other night because I was focused on getting pics of my favorite band and of my friends and I? I'm not knocking photos and their ability to help us recall times passed. I just wonder if the digital aspect hasn't taken away from truly immersing ourselves in life as it is happening.
Maybe it is selective memory, but when I think back to the days of film photography, I don't remember picture taking being the focal point of any outing. We took photos and put the camera aside to get on with the experience. Sure there were times we got the film developed and just missed the moment, or someone wasn't ready when the shutter closed, but there was something real in it.
I am at odds with what used to be and the convenience and wonder of what is. Being able to click through photos of a vacation, growing families, and nights out with friends is amazing. Twenty years ago I would never have imagined getting to experience things through photos in the way we do today. We are able to watch people's lives change and see what they've seen, all without the threat of photo paper degradation. We don't have to file as much detail away to preserve memories, because typically one look at a photo will prompt a flood of recollections surrounding the captured moment. And of course, photos serve as proof we did, saw, partied, loved, knew and experienced life to the fullest.
The funny thing is, some of my most treasured memories were never documented with a picture. I have been places and experienced times with people I cared about at one time or another and have zero photographic evidence that those many moments ever actually occurred. Sometimes I have regretted this, only to realize that maybe those times were suppose to remain between the people or person I was with and myself. My best friend and I exploring caverns in Virginia in 1992, my sons' first steps, a short-lived relationship without a single photo of the two of us together, my grandmother's unbelievable smile at seeing a great-grandchild born...these are all moments that I am allowed to selfishly keep as my own.
Life is imperfect, and while it is great seeing photos with everyone putting on their best smile, or being able to capture the exact second the magic in any given moment happens, being able to pass up on capturing everything in the perfect photo is essential to uninterrupted experience.
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