I have been working for my mom a bit this summer just to make a little extra cash, and one of the things that I have been doing is scanning pictures.
These pictures are interesting to see, and I think most of them were ones I hadn't seen before. After spending about 4 hours straight doing this today, I had a few thoughts that came up that I felt like sharing.
One thing I noticed is how amazing it is that there is always some essence of our face that stays the same. I scanned pictures of my grandmother that ranged through her whole life time- baby to current, and although I might not have been able to identify her as the baby without a label... I can see the resemblance when it is pointed out. I did this for my mom, aunt, uncles and cousins, and I came to the same general conclusion that I did with my grandma that we (with the exceptions of major accidents and plastic surgery I suppose) look like us our whole lives. It isn't even just one characteristic, like the eyes, its a combination of everything.
The reason I am scanning them really made me think too. My mom had mentioned that she wanted a digital copy of them so that she wouldn't have to keep the hard copy. On the one hand, the sentimental side of me, thinks that it would be so bad to throw away these pictures that survived so many years. Some of these pictures are of my great-great grandparents! And yet... why should we keep them. We have them saved, preserved on a disk. In theory, now we could save them forever (or as long as computers can keep storing and re-saving the pictures in the new formats of the future). As more generations pass, what would be the point of having old pictures in boxes? I like photobooks, and will probably continue to do them (and making my own calendar too) but you know I can't honestly think of many reasons to print just pictures out these days?
I have a free print from one of the online photo sites. But I can't think of what I would want with it. I suppose a few in frames around the house, or give to friends... but many times my digital pictures stay digital. I want them, I like the memories they preserve, but unless it is a photobook or a calendar, most of them just stay there. (I also had many moments of giving thanks for digital camera making it so future generations don't have to scan my pictures). With awesome technology like digital frames, even printing pictures for frames is becoming obsolete. Why have just one picture of your husband on your desk when you can have a frame changing the picture all the time? (That is on my list of things I would like to have someday :-D).
For some reason, it also made me think about art- namely, children's art. As a teacher, I have lost count of how many drawing kids have given me. Originally, I wanted to keep all of it... but it didn't take long for practicality to win out. I asked a fellow teacher at the time what she did, and her wisdom hasn't steered me wrong yet. She has a spot where she keeps some of it, but she goes through it every so often and only the things that still have meaning to her stay. Makes sense, so I do the same, keeping cards and drawings that have meaning for me, while "sending to the big refrigerator in the sky" the ones that don't. (It sounds mean... but some of these are literally just coloring pages, sometimes with a to: and from:).
It made me think about my future child's art. What do you keep? How? If it is just in a box, it will never be looked at, and what's the point of that? But ditching all of it is just as clearly not the thing to do. One of my student's parent last year scanned all of her daughter's work from the year (actually came in handy for me preparing for next year :p) and I like the digital idea, but even these files... will her daughter really want to look at a report she did about California's flag when she is 30? On the other extreme, I don't think my mom kept much of my art or reports as a kid (and maybe she will reply to this blog and say she does have it somewhere that I am not aware of) so I can't look back on it. We got a box of Blake's stuff in this area- art and reports as a kid, and he probably wouldn't have kept most of it... it was me that saved it!
I know this is very rambling, but this is my current stream of consciousness, and I don't have a great solution. I think it would be good to save some... but then again, what will my great grandchild do with all my old stuff?
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