Taking pictures, adjusting memories.

[Mitchell Andrus]

James' vacation and all the talk about taking enough pictures.... I dunno about you......

When I think about snapping a picture, I now think to myself
"I'll look at it later" <snap>.

"I'll look at it later" <snap> "I'll look at it later" <snap> "I'll look at it later" <snap>. Get back in the car.

I've got a stack of VHS tapes of the kids growing up and gigs of pictures. My memories of special trips, vacations, sand castles, birthday parties are all marred by the need to get just the right shot and artificial poses. Cameras, batteries, chips, shadows on faces, "say cheeze til the flash works".

I wouldn't trade the vids and pics for my left foot, but.....

About 10 years ago, I put down the camera and just enjoyed being there. Now I remember events in a different way. I don't need to 'look at it later', I can see it just fine in person and I'm not remembering all the work involved in trying to get a half-decent shot, and we all know how most vacation shots look, don't we?

Just my $.02. Don't let the camera get between you and the thing you went to see. And..... make sure someone takes YOUR picture once in a while.
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[Brad Wood]

what about family that wasnt there to enjoy the moment with you? what about when the kids grow up?

I can't imagine not seeing pictures of myself when I was a kid growing up, doing the different things, etc. i can't imagine taking that away from other kids either.

As grandparents now, it frustrates us to no end that our older boy doesn't take more pictures of their kids for us... and they live in another state so we don't get the first hand memories but maybe once a year.

To each his own I suppose, but if I were you I'd consider trying to figure out how to take a picture that doesn't end up ruining the moment while at the task

[mike holden]

Mitch,
My wife and I are a bit different, she takes videos, and I take stills. We both write in a journal each night on vacation.
Back home, I turn the pics and video into a dvd which is placed with the journal.

We both turn to the journals and dvds often to remember the fun times.

Maybe its because neither of us is terribly concerned over getting the "perfect shot" and dont care for "people" shots - just scenery and animals, people are for the occasional interaction.

Mike (and Becky)

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Mitchell, my wife would be shocked to her that. It's important to some people I guess. I agree with you mostly though. The photo alblum of the mind is always better than the one that you took anyway.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Whoa, slow down.

I didn't say we don't take pictures. I just don't make the need to see it later an over-riding event within the event.

Taking 20 - 30 pictures of the Vatican is a waste of time and is a memory in and of itself. One or two shots with you and a companion in front of the place places you there. If you want to see the Vatican, look at it in person. If you want to see pictures of the Vatican, there are some great shots on-line that look better than yours.

So many memories of birthdays are of taking pictures and videos. I remember the event through a view finder. My son blowing out his 10th birthday candles. I didn't see it.... I saw a video of it in my right eyeball. YUK!
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[Brent Leonard]

My wifes into pictures, and I do enjoy the good ones. But I find myself not having the time personally to sort though photos, therefore I would do nothing with them.

I am happy the wife likes sorting through them though. Some pictures really capture the joy of being with family and the trip.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Variety is the spice of life.

My wife is known as the camera queen. She has 2 digital cameras and a digital camcorder. She often has a good digital SLR around her neck and a good digital camcorder around her neck.

She makes scrap books of our vacations doing it in prints, cds and videos with verbage to refresh the memory.

Often she will press me into service if we are doing something that could only have 1 opporturnity to film. Example...whale watching off the coast of New Zealand last December. I got the only 2 photos of the whale. She was looking the wrong way and it happened so quickly that she didn't have to time to recover.

On our trip last December to NZ she took 37 GB of memory for her 2 cameras and shot 24 GB. That's somewhere around 2400 photos.

We bought and the oldest son and I moved a 400 LB. fireproof safe to out basement. You guessed it! It stores her 35mm film rolls, her cds and DVDs.

[Tom Godley]

I concur.

I watch a lot of people on trips seeing he best moments through a lens.

Having memories of a trip is great - it does not always have to be a picture. Most people have little interest in them anyway.

In fact I have had more than a couple moments ruined by someone who "needs" to take a picture!


That not to say I do not take pictures - its not my primary reason to take a trip. I buy the coffee table book - the pictures are better


I believe Mitchell is speaking of trips!

Family gathering - around the house pictures are great fun.

[Greg Peterson]

My wife is the camera bug. She's forever taking pictures and trying to catalog and keep track of them on the hard drive is a bit of a task.

Apple recently came out with face recognition in their IPhoto app which makes organizing and managing photos a whole lot easier. Won't be long and this technology will be developed or licensed to the PC side if it doesn't already exist.

Open a picture of the family, tag each face in the image and the app scans all image files and identifies each picture each face is in. Filter image files accordingly.

As for me, I tend to like to travel as lightly as possible. Don't own a cell phone largely for this reason alone. Money clip & pocket knife is all I carry. Car key ring is kept to absolute minimum keys required (three in my case),

So I'm predisposed to not carrying around a camera and just enjoy my 'organic photos'. The color and the sound age in a strangely unique and pleasing way.

[Jim Rimmer]

[QUOTE=Tom Godley;1190654]I concur.


"In fact I have had more than a couple moments ruined by someone who "needs" to take a picture!" Quote

When I'm on vacation or in a tourist area, I use my own 3 second rule. Once the person is in front of the landmark, snap the shot in three seconds or I'm walking on. I don't mean to be rude but I'm not wasting my precious vacation time waiting for soemone else to get the perfect shot.

On taking pics in general, we snap a few with each other in them and then buy a set of picture postcards that were taken by the pros and are much better than anything we can take and will fit in the album.

We made a trip to Israel last year and one of the guys bragged that he had 1600 photos. Thats 160 per day. Eight hours per day touring thats 20 per hour not allowing time for bus riding and eating. Probably more like 40 per hour on sites; that's 1 every minute and a half. Too bad he didn't get to see Israel.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Originally Posted by Greg Peterson

The color and the sound age in a strangely unique and pleasing way.

Very true! I'll bet that all of our first girl friends look nothing like we remember! (unless you married her!)

[Howard Boehm]

I take a lot of pictures on my projects as I build them. A year after I have finished something and I look at the photos I wonder how I ever built that. It give me encouragement to start the next project. My kids and Friends love to see the progress. Vacation is different story. you wouldn't know I was alive as I am not in any of the photos as I take most of them. Photography is my second hobby and woodworking is my 1st. I took up photography as it was a break from woodworking and it gave my lungs time to get the sawdust out and the splinters had time to fester to the top. Its also a very clean hobby. My projects are at www.howardboehm.com. I have a bar, an office, a pantry, an entertainment center and a wine cellar.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Nice job on the cellar and the bar. The others too.
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[Stephen Musial]

I take pictures and video of just about every event - vacations, birthdays, Christmas, etc. For Christmas and birthdays, the video camera sits on a tripod and just runs. For other stuff (depending on the circumstances) we use either the point and shoot digital or the DSLR.

Every morning before I get the kids up, I spend 15 or 20 minutes editing the video, still photos, music, etc. into a movie. I'm using Adobe Premier Elements for the last few years and it works really well. There are various transitions, fades, the ability to add narration, soundtracks, etc. The first one starts with my wife's baby showers and then it tracked our daughter year by year (September to September). When our son came along I just started doing it by year.

The digital photos are all stored on the hard drive by year and month (and backed up to a portable hard drive every night) and every few years, I'll send a bunch to MPIX.com and put the prints into an album.