All Hail The Digital Age

Once Upon A Lifetime.

Once upon a lifetime we talked about going to have our film developed and marveled about Polaroid pictures that you could see come to life in front of your eyes. Once upon a lifetime we got excited because instead of waiting days to see if our shots had come out we waited hours and then an hour.

Now my kids haven’t a clue what I am talking about when I mention 110, 126, 35 MM or the Kodak disk camera I received for my Bar-Mitzvah.

They expect to see instant results from the snapshots we take and then wonder if we really need to develop them because we can always look at them on a computer, smartphone or iPad.

Sometimes I wonder about that too.

Photo Albums

It took about ten minutes to make that photo collage and that was because I was multitasking. Yeah, I can do two things at once.

I don’t have to worry about whether those shots will get stuck to the pages of a photo album that isn’t properly treated. I don’t have to worry about whether those shots will be torn because someone tries to pull them out of the album.

But I do have to be concerned about whether someone will download them and do something to them because that could happen. Once you post something online you lose control of the content you have posted.

I don’t spend much time worrying about whether something bad will happen or if someone will do something that I do not like. Some of that is because I know it is going to happen. If you post enough content someone will steal your material and use it.

It has happened to me more than once.

For a while some lady in Malaysia was grabbing posts and publishing them, beats the hell out of me why she was doing it. When I asked her to stop she never responded and then she cut off comments.

The blog disappeared so I don’t know if she kept doing it elsewhere or not.

Things To Be Concerned About?

Pictures are a bit different, especially when you aren’t the only in them. It is possible that someone could take these photos and cause trouble but I tend not to worry about that either.

It is a bit like not wanting to leave the house because you might get hit by a car. It is possible, but chances are it won’t happen.

Instead I look at those shots and try to remember things I might have forgotten. I look at those shots and think about the moments because the little people aren’t so little any more.

Life Never Stops

It is funny how that happens. Those shots of me are all pretty similar.

There may be more or less hair on my face/head since then, but aside from that you won’t find too many physical changes. But the life experiences, well that is a different story because the things that have happened in between the now and then of those photos is enormous.

Those are some of the moments that changed everything and are part of why I say I am not who I was.

Change is Change

I can’t say for certain whether they were good or bad changes but I can say that some were painful.

But the thing about change is that you can’t always see things until time has gone by. You can’t always figure out if the hard stuff led to better or worse situations. You can’t always see if there was growth until time passes.

It is different with little people because you can look at a five year window and see dramatic changes. You can look at a ten year window and wonder if they were ever that small.

All Hail The Digital Age

And thanks to the joys of technology it is possible to record the minutes and moments with more precision than ever before. Sometimes I think that is a very good thing and sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t better to let those misty colored memories go unchallenged by the digital data that we have access to today.

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