When you’re a photographer, you take thousands and thousands of photos. The past few days, I have been moving around and cleaning up hard drives to make space and to organize things in general. While I was doing this, I would randomly click on a file within a shoot to see what it was. There were about 10 times that I was excited by what I saw. It was some memory or person that I had totally forgotten about. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, but I was reliving moments through my photography, and I was reminded again how important my job is.
Reliving Moments Through Photography
I was looking through all types of photos in this process, and it amazed me how many different emotions I had through this process. I found some photos from my time at Oakdale, and I was reminded of all the fun times I had there, and I even remembered how goofy certain kids were. I saw some sports photos from when I was at Woodland, and those guys are now seniors, and I can’t believe how much they have changed. I saw photos of one of my dogs that passed, and it made me sad that he is gone, but I was still happy to have the memories. I found photos of my son when he was just a curly haired baby, and I can’t believe that he is five and a half now. All of these memories were somewhere in my head, but they wouldn’t be as clear or remembered as easily without the photos.
One of the big things that I took away from this besides how important photography is, is that when you just have digitals, you really don’t tend to relive the memories as often. The only reason I saw these photos is because I was randomly going through them. Clients often want digitals thinking they are the better option, but the majority of the time the digitals just sit around somewhere and never get seen again or rarely. Prints really are the best way to go. Get them printed and get them out where you can see them. This way, you are reliving the moments every time you walk into a room.
This whole experience has made me want to go back and look through more photos and see what else I have forgotten about. Reliving moments through photography is what it’s all about, and I really haven’t been doing a good job of it with my own personal photos. I need to get those things out, print them, and enjoy them on a daily basis.
