where have all the pictures gone?

They’re stuck in cell phones, compact flash cards and computers.

Remember the days when people actually had scrapbooks that contained paged and pages of snapshots? You know, the ones you can probably find in your mother or grandmother’s attic – the ones with pictures carefully framed by four small black paper corners… with thoughtful captions about who, where and when neatly scrawled below each image?

The other day I had lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen since her grandchild was born. When I asked to see a picture of the little guy, my friend whipped out her cell phone, and voila! there he was, pacifier in adorable little (and I do mean little) slightly fuzzy face. I was disappointed. I mean, come on, isn’t is much more satisfying to hold a piece of paper in your hands and slowly linger on each dimple, run your fingers over baby smooth skin, study the eyes, the nose, the fat little legs? I felt robbed.

I guess it’s akin to reading a book on the computer. Sounds awful to me. I love the weight of a book in my lap, the texture and smell of the paper, the sound of pages turning.

I shoot digital snapshots now, too. But I do make myself go to Costco and have prints made (at a whopping $.14 apiece) so that I can add them to the scrapbooks I started when the kids were born, put them in frames or tack them to the refrigerator.

Can’t you just hear all those imprisoned digital picture files calling out? Print me! Put me in a safe place somewhere so years from now someone will know I existed!