7600

Pictures tell a story, they help us remember, they take us places. I do genealogy and to find a picture is like buried treasure. When I visit family, I love to pour over photos, unlocking the past.

Photos create a mental map to emotions. They make us feel. You can freeze a moment in time. I like the unfiltered moments. Photos without filters, no poses, old school candid shots.

Photographs are like mile markers, identifying places and times in our minds. I have so many albums, and I still print photos. My phone has 7600 pictures on it, sometimes I use them to help me remember what year something happened. I like having access to my photos at my fingertips.

Some of my favourite photos are not the staged ones. There is one of me and my grand daughter but she is a baby and it is just our toes. Another is of my daughter nine months pregnant and she is walking along the ocean edge looking down.

My husband doesn’t have many photos of his childhood. There was a fire and and precious photos were lost. His dear Aunt who has passed away was able to get some to me and I am able to finally see his childhood. Zero baby pictures, such a loss.

I ran around with a camera when I was a kid, and my kids ran around with the video camera when they were kids. Our lives have been well documented. I hope our future generations will cherish these pieces of our past. Going forward I hope they print out photos. Not just pass around a phone, physical prints to leave behind, for the future to enjoy.