This has to be the most photographed of eras, including everything from historical events to personal events to plates of food. I was just scrolling on my phone - two years’ worth of mostly the grandkids, and mostly not very good pictures, since I’m a sucky photographer. But it occurred to me that I hadn’t even looked at most of them at all after I took them. Same with the folders of vacation photos I downloaded to my PC - very rarely do I even think about them. Reaching even farther back, there’s a box in my basement full of photo albums that hasn’t been opened in the 19 years we’ve lived here.
Am I an anomaly or am I fairly typical? And wedding videos - do you ever look at yours? Or anyone else’s for that matter?
I remember often looking at family photo albums as a kid. As a young adult I made a few of my own photo albums of trips with friends. Still have shoeboxes of prints and negs
Creative Memories, remember this scrapbooking company? All the moms were neck deep in this mlm fad. I did purchase a starter kit but at that time I couldn’t be bothered to organize photos chronologically let alone create pages of cropped, framed and annotated photos. So many albums that my SIL always had to show off. I came to realize they were thick with stickers and die cuts, the pics meh. Didn’t float my boat.
So no I don’t look at any photos besides my favorites mostly pets and nature on my phone.wedding album?
I think you’re at least somewhat typical. I suspect for most people it is a question of occasional bursts of nostalgia rather than regular perusing. I’m a little different insomuch as amateur (often very amateur) nature photography is a hobby and I like to at least change my desktop background every few days. But even I usually don’t spend a significant amount of time doing so.
I do enjoy looking at old family photo albums, but we’re talking about years between one viewing to the next.
Years and years pass between one viewing and the next, the best I manage, sometimes, is to create the right folder for a set of pics, give it a recognizable name and file it away. I think that I don’t have to look at pictures, it is enough to have them. Somewhere. Probably.
When we are all together at my moms home we always end up breaking out the old family picture albums as a last resort to have something to do. Mom is 92 now and we always ask questions about who people are and what color is that dress you made for prom (so we can colorize it properly). Sooner or later I will upload them to our ancestry.com account that my cousin has been populating.
As for my own pictures, I have all my digital photos since 2002 backed up on the could and on a 1 TB solid state hard drive. I go looking through them a couple of times a year, usually around peoples birthdays for a throwback shot. Last year, I gave my stepsons girlfriend a copy of a picture when he was 8 and wearing a blue Power Ranger jumpsuit to Kings Island. She loved it, he pretended to be embarrassed but actually he was really cute.
Before 2002 is ancient time, I have those kept in old cigar boxes and rarely go through them anymore.
Just three days ago I was chatting with an older couple, and she said she’s got thousands of “snapshots” in boxes. Her husband said “We should just get them digitized.” The wife asked me how that worked.
I ended my explanation with "And they’ll give you a thumb drive with your best hundred photos on it. Or all your pictures, if you want to pay that much…
Then you’ll put the drive in a drawer, and years later realize that you really didn’t need all those photos."
“But what if I have to print one out?” (Wife)
“And do WHAT with it exactly?” (Husband, laughing)
“Send it to the grandkids?” (Wife)
“Who would rather just see the photo in their Facebook feed.” (Me)
“Or emailed, [sigh], if you must…” (Husband)
My mom uses a randomized photo display as her screen saver, and sometimes she’ll sit and watch it, remembering vacations and trips and parties. I cringe if it comes up when I’m there - she’ll be telling me about the people in the photos - people I’ve never met and likely will never meet. But she’s so paranoid about her electric bill, she rarely leaves her computer on if she’s not actively using it.
When we moved my mom back to California, we noticed some photographs we’d never seen before. It was a lot of fun going through those. My mom lived in the SF Bay Area in the 40s, and she had a ton of pics of her and her friends in places like Muir Woods and the dance floor at Larkspur Landing.
Not a lot. I’ve got massive numbers of pictures of the grandkids my kids send on my phone which I should move to my computer some day. But I don’t look at them again. I only look at travel pictures when I need one for some reason. And when my college friends and I started exchanging emails, I put up some of my old college pictures which I digitized.
I suspect I’d look at the pictures more when the people in them are gone (assuming I don’t go first) but not before that.
I have all of the best photos from our family in a folder on a computer that’s in a family area. I use a photo screensaver which cycles through them, displaying them on the screen 24x7 when the computer is not in use. All of the kids, my wife, and myself are looking at the photos constantly.
At least once a day we’re talking about a photo that came up, something that happened, somewhere we visited. It’s awesome. Especially when pictures of our many dogs come up, some of which have passed away. They’re not with us on this earth but always in our hearts.
