At one point in the early 2000s, I realized that even though I was taking thousands of photos over the course of a vacation, at no point in my life had I ever gone back to look at photos of old vacations. Since then, I only very rarely take photos when travelling, preferring instead to try and focus on the moment.
After a recent trip with friends though, where they were taking tons of snaps and me, barely any, I wonder if I’m the odd one out. Whether it’s old photographs, journal entries, emails, or any other artifacts that people accumulate over the course of their life, how much time do you spend revisiting them? Is this a common human activity that is simply alien to me or is everyone else just accumulating digital memories that will never see the light of day ever again?
I have learned that when it comes to taking vacation photos, I’m mostly taking them for other people, and as far as that’s concerned, the photos other people care about, in general, are the ones that include people they know in them, e.g. I can see a photo of the Eiffel Tower anywhere, but I can’t see a photo of my wife at the Eiffel Tower anywhere. Those are the photos that are interesting to me, so I assume those are the photos that are interesting to others. I don’t really bother taking any other kind of photo unless it’s of something genuinely unique or interesting to few enough people there’s not a postcard of it somewhere.
And I absolutely loathe posed photographs at monuments or sceanic areas. My dad was the best at catching people off guard and getting good photos. I try that as well.
I do revisit my photos on occasion. I noticed one thing a couple of years ago. Back in the 60s-80s, I kept every photo no matter how blurry because it was the only one I had. I LOVE the ability to discard the dross right away. I try to do that at the end of each day I shoot so I don’t end up with a card full of duplicate or similar images.
The invention of digital cameras and photo frames has changed my relationship to memento photos. My wife saves pictures from vacations and family gathering on SD cards which she inserts into a couple of frames we have, rotating the cards in and out randomly. I often find my attention attracted by a photo, and then I stand there for a few minutes reminiscing as the pics change.
I don’t like having my photo taken (I’m not photogenic/don’t like how I look camera), so there’s very few photos of me in the last 4 years or so. I love taking photos of others for posterity, but most aren’t into it. People seem less sentimental than they used to be.
My father was a photo and video nut. When I was in my teens, over a summer, I organized all of our photos by year (IE “1990” has it’s own photo album, etc). The years 1990-1997 take up nine 300 page photo albums, and there’s still hundreds left over that are in boxes or baggies which couldn’t fit into the albums. He went a bit overboard.
Between 1990 and 1995, he also shot seven two hour home movies which I had converted to DVD. The films are literally as follows:
Tape 1) November 25th 1990 - March 21st 1991
Tape 2) April 14th 1991 - July 18th 1991
Tape 3) August 9th 1991 - December 24th 1991
Tape 4) November 23rd 1991 - May 30th 1992
Tape 5) September 17th 1992 - July 16th 1993
Tape 6) September 15th 1993 - December 25th 1993; April 24th 1994
Tape 7) April 26th 1994 - December 25th 1994; January 6th 1995; November 23rd 1995.
Then there are the small collection of candid microcassette tapes:
September 1992 - Mid 1994 (about an hour)
June 1994 (about half an hour)
Candid phone calls (accidentally taped in December 1992)
He accidentally erased two years worth of audio a few years ago, which had candid stuff from 1995 through 1997.
My screensaver pulls photos from my most recent trips, so I see those fairly often.
I have a ton of photo albums that I go back to once in awhile looking for a specific image that I haven’t digitized…sometimes to use in a blog post or when a friend brings up what we saw on a certain vacation.
I have a box of travel-related ephemera (postcards, trail and visitor guides, national park maps, etc) for every trip I take. I’ll pull out a box from time to time and go through it to relive the experience, or sometimes I’ll grab something to give to someone who’s planning a trip in the same area.
When I tire of my wallpaper, I’ll look for another pic to put up. The current one is from our trip to Maine 7 years ago. My photos are in folders by event or topic, and when I’m looking for a new background, I’ll cycle thru several and reminisce before making my selection. I never thought of having a photo frame to do a slideshow. I might try that.
I doubt I have over 25 photographs, I have maybe 100 online at any given time that will mostly get deleted. I don’t save trophies, ribbons, certificates or anything else I won’t need for future reference. Old hunting photos are about the only ones I get a little sentimental about. Mementos in general I have no use for.
when i was younger i got really into coin collecting / rock and gem collecting, and i never really appreciated my collection, never really sat down and looked at what i had amassed over the years.
idgaf about the photos i take either, they either go up on instagram or i just delete them eventually
I look through my old vacation photos as well as photos taken during summer events quite often during the winter. They help get through that awful slog between New Year’s and St Patrick’s Day, when Chicago is usually bitterly cold and snowy and winter seems to drag on and on. I usually take my big vacation in early May, and then I’m ready for summer starting on Memorial Day weekend.
I don’t really. So I don’t take pictures or pick up mementos/keepsakes.
I watch people who are very into picture-taking sometimes and I fear some of them (not all, but some) are missing out on experiencing something because they get so focused on taking a picture of it.
I agree – I’ve decided no picture-taking on my next trip. I can get postcards with nicer photos than I can take, or just search on-line. My father takes 1000s of pictures, “perfects” them (read: makes them clinically perfect with no life to them) in Photoshop and puts them on CDs, never to be looked at again.
But I do have a treasure box of pictures, cards*, funeral programs, etc., that have meant something. I have a photo album of all pictures with my mom in them, and I just had it out to look through at her graveside this weekend.
*My brother had a heart attack years ago and while he was unconscious in the hospital, my parents and I stayed in his apartment. It was … messy … so we straightened up (you couldn’t see the floor when we started so seeing it probably threw him off when he got home) and I always wondered if we had overstepped, that maybe he was offended we imposed like that. He gave me a card my next birthday saying “Thank you for helping me when I was down”. That’s priceless because he is not that in touch with feelings, and I thought we messed up badly, so it makes me happy to read that years later.
Also little treasures from my mom. She was very indecisive about gifts and my father controlled the money, so gifts from her to me were special. I always bemoaned that I don’t have the kind of name found on personalized items, so she had one made at a craft fair where they would personalize on the spot. It was a pin made of something which deteriorated, so I eventually encased it in glue so I wouldn’t lose this special thing my Mom did for me.
Almost none. I’m not a terribly sentimental person and have always thrown out/recycled cards within a week of getting them (unless I am saving them until I remember to put the return address in my records). My mom has piles upon piles of photos that she keeps trying to dump on me, but I remind her that I have no safe place to keep them. Even the photos on my walls I don’t ‘see’ until someone is over and says something about them.
Facebook shows me memories (on this day, previous years) every day. I love/hate this. While it’s nice seeing the pictures, it makes me think I’m creating fewer zingers now.
Some but more well after the fact; I was just today looking at some pictures from a vacation we took 12 years ago. We do have some trinkets out on regular display that have vacation memories attached to them but I think that is different from what the OP is asking.
