We live in a time when more and more pictures are being taken. People take pictures of the food they eat, the places they visit, and what they’re wearing. They snap adorable photos of their children, and ridiculous selfies as they have fun making faces. People are capturing more photos than ever, because they always have their phones easily available, and the picture quality on camera phones can be amazing.
People tell themselves that the best camera to use, is the one they have on them, and increasingly, that is their cell phone.
More people are sharing these photos too, through social sites like Instagram and Tumblr and Facebook, so more and more people are seeing the pictures that define and illustrate our lives.
It seems like photography has hit a giant upswing in popularity.
However, frequently, that’s where current photography stops.
Photographs are not backed up, and frequently just deleted when our phones run out of space for new photos.
Not only that, but we don’t go back at look at older photos. Once the initial love at first sight photo share is over, we don’t go back to revisit and remind ourselves of the photos we love. Out sight becomes out of mind, and then out of memory.
So, while we’re taking more photos than ever, we’re also doing nothing with them. No printing, no photo albums, and no memory keeping.
Photography is dying, from a surfeit of photos, and a lack of a plan on what to do with the glut of photos we all have.
We can save photography. It’s a simple process. Save the photos you love some place other than your phone. Try dropbox, or carbonite, or an external hard drive. And print! Put pictures up on your wall. Send hardcopies to your family and friends. Scrapbook.
Because while scarcity makes a thing more valuable, I’d rather there were too many photographs in the world, than none.
The photographs you take tell stories about who you are, and the world around you. Your story matters. The world you live in matters.
Save your photographs.
Scrapbook.
