Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

This morning, in a sad attempt to avoid getting down to doing the things people actually pay me to do, I decided that I would attempt to set some form of organization upon the approximately twelve gazillion photographs I have on my iPhones and now on my computer. I have an appointment tomorrow with some pointy-headed little technoperson at the Apple Store to begin the cumbersome project of guiding me through the intricacies of dealing with my new computer. Because I could not find time for the appointment until then, I have been bumbling about with it, trying to figure out what I could on my own. Keeping in mind that I was thrilled to be able to work an electric pencil sharpener, I think I've done a fair job of reinventing the wheel several times with this beast. I have, more or less, figured out how to move the images from the phone to the computer. And now I have, more or less, figured out how to arrange them in some form that might actually let me find what I may some day look for. Which brings me to the point of this brief scribble. 

Why on earth do I have so many pictures on my phones and computers? What is this mania for capturing some instant of eternity on film or digitally? I have, literally, thousands of them and what do they add to my life? I have shelves full of photograph albums that chronicle my adult life from about 1980 to about 1992. I know those are the dates because all the albums from before that went to one of my ex-husbands in the divorce (I got all the boxes and boxes of slides and the projector); and after that date I moved to Tennessee with another future ex-husband and the medium started to change from film & chemicals to digital. I have boxes and boxes of unfiled photographs and the accompanying floppy discs. I have storage bins of floppy discs that may tell stories of family trips and times abroad. There are later storage boxes of CDs full of images of family, friends, events, and places. There are several old telephones sitting around, unrecycled, because I want to get the pictures off them before I ditch them. Some have been sitting around for years. And I have nothing on which to run floppy discs ...

Do I take pictures for the same reason I write? Trying to make sense of the world around me? Trying to remember some significant event in my life? Surely a slender volume of aides-mémoire would do the job as well. Remarkable writers and artists (including photographers) have been able to do this in centuries past without grabbing everything, magpie-like, and stashing it away. Or do I simply not know about their lumber rooms full of junk, physical and mental, because only the fine, final work has survived? People pay loads of money for working manuscripts and preliminary sketches of masters gone by. I suppose the difference is actually having some plan for what to do with all this material. Rather like having some idea of exactly when I might ever wear all the jewelry I buy. And knowing when to throw out the stuff that isn't really good. I have nearly 200 pictures of my furkids on my current phone. How many pictures do I really need of Scooter sleeping with her paws over her eyes? Or of Owen on full alert gazing out the front window like a miniature Rin Tin Tin? 

Aaron & Henry c. 1980?

I have derided parents and grandparents at children's sporting events who hardly see the game/match at all because they are so busy taking pictures of it. I recall soccer matches for my son and my grandson,  on pitches with magnificent backdrops of mountains or sky, and I missed part of the scope and beauty of what was going on (which included the scrum of parents and fans on the sidelines) because I was concentrating on my viewfinder. I recall a couple of incidents of parents getting whacked in the head by rogue soccer balls because they didn't see it coming for being so busy filming their little star standing somewhere else on the field. I was sitting in the stands at a big, outdoor horse show in California years and years ago; I recall finally getting my camera out of my face long enough to look over at the riders waiting well outside the ring for their 'go' and seeing my jumping instructor and her friend, on their horses, toking away on a joint before hitting the ring. Just think of all the other hysterically funny, heartbreakingly poignant, truly interesting and useful things I've missed over the years for spending my time peering into a tiny lens in order to capture a moment. 

Could have been that trip ...

And what is truly captured? What of that moment is saved for anyone else? I recall once being completely and totally lost somewhere between Bratislava and Prague in the bad old days when it was still Czechoslovakia. We were driving along out in the back of nowhere, I had a squally kid in the back seat, and none of the very few road signs made any sense (I mean, have you ever actually seen what Czech looks like on a road sign?). But it was a gorgeous spring day and what I do remember so clearly is how brilliantly blue the sky was, how remarkably green the fields were and how happy I felt just to be there ... lost or not.  I seem to also recall that I was reading A Man Called Intrepid at the time. And you know what? There were no pictures taken that day. I recall floating down a ski run at Mammoth Mountain with numb lips and a runny nose; having the time of my life. No pictures that day either. I recall my teenage child asleep on the couch with tousled hair, a puffy face and drooling just slightly ... OK, I did take a picture of that one. 

At least when I write I have to give some thought to what I'm producing (whether the finished product seems that way or not). When I take pictures, it's just snap and go. I don't think this means that I'll stop taking pictures; maybe I'll just stop stockpiling them. 

(OK, there are some I'm glad were taken ...!)

That was the strange thing about the past: you always remembered it as being much more interesting than the present yet at the time it was happening it had  actually been rather dull. (Caroline Graham, A Ghost in the Machine)