Luckily this post isn’t a sob story about losing all of the photos of my child because they were on my computer which got stolen, stopped working, exploded, deleted them, etc. I’m fairly tech-minded but I’ve got to tell you that it took me a while to really think the issue of digital photos through enough for me to come to my senses.
When I look back at photos our wedding and our honeymoon I instantly realize how important these images are. They take us back to a time when things were different. Probably not better but certainly worth remembering in a visual way. These images are good times remembered and, unlike memories, they are shareable. I couldn’t bear to lose the photos of our son. Unlike the honeymoon and the wedding he will likely have no memory of his first year(s) of life. These photographs are extremely important for that reason alone. So, despite my best efforts to avoid spending money, we decided to purchase digital storage space for our photos.
Yes, I know there are lots of free websites that will host your photos for you but you need only do a routine search to find the horror stories from users of some of those websites. Everything from paying to download your own photo in full quality to all of your photos being deleted because you didn’t read the fine print. We wanted a place where we could safely store them outside the confines of our own home and share them with family members at the same time. Now our relatives can download full quality prints of our son without bugging us to send them an e-mail. Now they can buy a coffee mug displaying our son’s smiling eyes. Now we can rest, a little easier, knowing that this digital memories will still be there if our hard drives fail, or our computers die, or our home is flooded, etc. This peace of mind is the best of all. You’re welcome, son.