Photo albums ....a no show

Digital photos have invaded our lives like nothing else. Just because we dont need to carry a camera with all accessories, just because we dont have to go to the studio with the film role carefully taken out from the camera and get them printed, just because the handphone has become such an extension of our hands, that we just stretch and click and click and stretch at every non event. Sharing the photos has also become so much idiot proofed that at any given minute thousands of them are moving in the cyber space from one handphone to another.I am restricting the number to only include the photos of people whom we know and keep in touch with.

What has happened simultaneously is that we have stopped printing and arranging the photos neatly in albums. We were sitting down to search for photos taken in the last ten years. Why last ten years you can ask. Appa's sathabhishekam was 9 years back and for that we had made a huge album of all good photos of family and with nice comments had gifted it to appa, as keepsake. It has been much thumbed by the visitors who come to see appa and amma all these years.Amma and appa  have also enjoyed reminiscing about the various photos and events associated with them.

So we decided to do an encore and I assigned the project to D. Instead of diving  into the photo albums, she immediately took out her laptop. It took a bit of time for me to realise that last ten years, the photos have been all digital and she has meticulously catalogued and stored them in her laptop. It is also a fact that amma and appa dont get to see the photos.We keep telling them it is in our laptop and we will come and show them. But that does not happen often. Amma does use a desktop, but many a time will have problems loading the images and also to rotate the images whenever required.

All major events captured continuously and recklessly on the digital camera/handphone has left out an entire generation. And they are the ones who would really like to see these photos and keep talking about them and keep looking at them again and again.

So, we decided to select and print good photos and make them into an album. But this time the album has to be smaller so that amma and appa are able to handle it without too much difficulty. It was a very pleasant exercise for D and J and me. Last ten years sweet memories printed and catalogued and gifted to amma on her 80th birthday!

Feel good!