One of my most valued possessions is my collection of photo albums. My mother did an excellent job of capturing our lives in photographs, and an even more excellent job of organizing them into albums. No, she didn’t scrapbook, as many often do these days. She put them all in a row in regular albums. I have one album for every two years of my life.
I’ve continued the tradition with our daughter. As I look around at other families, I sometimes feel old-fashioned for continuing the tradition. It seems that most families today are doing one of two things: scrapbooking, or saving photos in digital albums.
I briefly scrapbooked, but realized it took more time, effort, and money than I wanted. I also felt that I couldn’t include as many photos as I wanted, as scrapbooks usually only include the “best” pictures. As a result, my daughter will probably have the same stack of albums documenting her life that I have.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but the thought of having my photos only in digital albums scares the heck out of me. It seems so easy to lose all of the photos if something goes wrong with the computer. Yes, I know all about external hard drives, but it still freaks me out.
So, I continue to take photos, make prints, and organize them into photo albums. My daughter might love having the albums, or she may look around at her virtually book-less life (as everything is becoming available on computers) and think, “If only I didn’t have to haul this stack of albums around! NO ONE uses book shelves any more!”
I suppose if I were looking at it from an objective perspective, it’s just as easy to lose all of my hard copies of photos in a house fire or to a water leak. Still, I feel a sense of security being able to hold the albums in my hand.