We Live in Two Worlds

We live in two worlds. At least from a photographic point of view we do.

Most of us have become quite familiar with digital photography, at least enough to be able to take photos, discard the ones we don't like and import the ones we do to any number of photo storage solutions. Many of us know there are nearly endless levels of sophistication for the pictures we take but--as happens so often --the photo we need is the one taken at the end of our outstretched arm with our phones.

This provides immediacy to our world and makes everyone a content provider. It doesn’t matter if one is an expert technician, or knows the basics of photography or has reasonably good equipment. In the end what seems to matter most is acquiring, saving and retrieving content deemed important to us or by us at any given time. That makes photography an immediate or perhaps even an instant medium.

But it wasn't always that way. In fact, many of us, if not most of us, have at least some experience in a world where photos were special. They were planned for, often staged, prepared for and taken. Them it was a highly anticipated event to receive those photos back from the drugstore or in the mail and determine which looked good, which were okay and which had to be hidden away so no one else would see them. They look so real--at least the good ones did. When well lit and well shot they could grab you like nothing else.

I remember thinking how near-genius it was when my mother order two copies of every picture in the roll. One copy went in one of her many photo scrapbooks and one was given to some relative or some adult who was, by happenstance, in the photo.

Most of us know or have some idea what to do with our digital pictures. Whether or not we all take a crack at it, we still know that there are software programs that allow us to change lighting, sharpen images, change portrait to landscape and even take red eye out. Plus we know we can make copies for ourselves, make prints for as many people as we want or even send those photos to a number of people limited only by the number of e-mail addresses we might have. Put them on the internet and there are no limits at all!

But what about that picture of me holding my brother on my lap. The cute one. The one where we both have big eyes and are looking straight into the camera. Wouldn't it be great if we could do the same thing with those paper photos that we can do with our digitally shot photos?

Of course, the answer is we can. Scan your pictures and they are in the same boat as your digital ones -- digitized and ready to last half century or more. Then you can alter them any way you want and send them to whomever you want and do so whenever you want.

We are lucky to be living in a time where our creativity is basically bound by no borders. All our photos from the digital age are part of that. By digitizing the rest of our photos, the ones from the “golden days of our lives,” they can be included in the future as well. There is no more important history than our own.