Life is too short to waste even a moment. The richness of life lies in the memory of the journey. At best, memory is unreliable and fleeting. So be sure to capture all the important moments in a way that can never be forgotten. Take pictures of everything that matters to you. Because you never know what will matter to you 20 years from now.
Cataloguing your life is a discipline that requires practice and persistence. It has never been easier to do. Yet we are using our $1,000 smartphone camera to take photos of meaningless sandwiches instead of what is most important to us. We are photographing for the moment rather than for posterity.
The good news is that it is easy to get started with taking more meaningful and lasting photographs. The tools are easy to acquire. The rest is just about making yourself do a few things differently everyday. Before you know it, you will have compiled enough signifiant photographic memories that you will never want to stop. Here are a few tips to get your life catalogue started:
A Little Knowledge
Alexander Pope once said:
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:”
While true in most cases, it does not hold up when it comes to learning enough photography to catalogue your life. You only need a little knowledge to make beautiful pictures in most situations. One reason for this is that these days, the camera does most of the heavy lifting.
To get a jump on what you should know about photography, you need only ask a few questions such as, What is Focal Length? That will guide you into answers about aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Satisfy your curiosity about these things, and you won’t be able to help but take better pictures.
Upgrade to a Better Smartphone
They say the best camera is the one you have on you at the time. If you are the kind of person that always seems to have a smartphone glued to your hand, then you need to strongly consider upgrading your device to one of those flagships with an amazing camera.
No smartphone is equivalent to a DSLR. And not all smartphones are created equally. Most of your precious moments will be captured on a smartphone, not the giant camera you only take out for special occasions. So you need to have a good one.
The Pixel 2 arguably takes some of the best smartphone pictures possible today. Apple just released iPhone XS, hailed as a major improvement over previous iPhone cameras. And that is saying a lot. Samsung’s latest flagships are also at the top of the range.
Saving Memories
We used to have pictures printed out. We would then take a stack of photos and slot the best ones into a physical photo album. Those old photo albums are still some of the best repositories of important memories that exist.
It is still a good idea to print out your photos and save the best ones in a physical form. All you have to do to enjoy a printed photo is pick it up and look at it.
Put it on a memory card, and you have to find a computer with the right card slot, find an app that will open the photos, and hope you have enough room on your computer to get the pictures off the memory card. Even then, it is only a matter of time before your hard drive goes belly up.
Better to post all those pictures of old boyfriends and new puppies on at least two different online storage services, many of which are free. By all means, keep them on SD cards as well. But keep up with the tech. And when something replaces SD cards, transfer your photos to the new media. Just remember that with a little care, you will always be able to access prints regardless of the latest technology.
Cataloging the important moments of your life begins with a little knowledge of how to take good pictures regardless of your camera. That said, move up to a better cameraphone so that the camera you have with you is always up to the task. Finally, be disciplined about printing important photos, and safely storing the rest online.
Be careful not to become so focused on making memories that you forget to keep them in a way that will benefit you later.
