I have always had a poor memory, so most of my life I’ve been an avid journal-writer. But after years of writing in a journal every day, I found that I still struggled to remember things, even when I would go back and read all about them. On the other hand, I could look at an old scrapbook with a photo and a 1 sentence caption, and recall in detail the whole experience.
I also have been a photographer for 12+ years. I took a lot of photos of my kids on my phone, or set up photo shoots of them. But I never used my camera to take pictures of them doing ordinary things. I didn’t really think to connect journaling & photography until years after I became a mom. Once I started combining my photography skills with my writing skills, everything changed. I was able to document experiences in a beautiful way.
Let’s use a trip to the zoo as an example.
Rather than a bunch of ugly cell phone picture to document a visit to the zoo, I now just take a few really great ones that:
1-look significantly more beautiful
2-tell the story of our zoo visit
3-don’t overwhelm me with how many I have to go through (aren’t most of those cell phone pictures blurry or have someone blinking any way?)
Compare. Which would you rather have?
This:
Or that?
Because I’ve simplified the quantity, but increased the quality, I want to go back and look at them! I love seeing those couple of great pictures instead of a zillion ugly ones.
Our kids aren’t going to want to go through 4 million pictures on old hard drives some day. When you’re intentional with your photos, you’ll be happier (clear that digital clutter!), and your kids will be way happier some day too!
XOXO,
Rach
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