Sifting

I was looking through the pictures from our recent vacation. I remember back in the days of film this exercise would take just a few minutes with the picture total easily being under 100. Our recent week off netted just under 700 pictures thanks to the wonder of digital cameras. It's easy to take a lot of pictures with a digital camera because they feel cheap. When I used to use a film camera, each potential photo was calculated, assessed and only taken if it was deemed worthy. I think I was like that at first when I switched to digital as well. Over time, my approach has changed. Now, instead of waiting for the perfect shot, I just take lots of pictures, hoping that a few of them will fall into that perfect category.

But, as I mulled through the vacation photos, it struck me that these pictures aren't all that cheap. I started thinking about the amount of time I'd already spent trying to sift out the great and good from the mediocre and poor. And then there is the cost of storing the pictures. Unless a shot is completely dark or blurry, I have trouble deleting it. I save everything and I worry about my hard drive failing so I back it all up - to two places. Yes, there are costs to having so many photos. Still, I am often struck by the wonderful images that are captured along the way. They are often shots that I know I would never have thought of taking with a film camera.

In this mix, there is a shot of N running in knee-deep water in Lake Superior. While the colors are pretty, I would not have wasted a precious film exposure on it. I wouldn't even have considered it - the light was wrong, the camera too far away, there is nothing really  remarkable about the scenery, just a lot of lake. This picture, which I would like not have taken with film, is one of my favorite from the lot. When I look at it, I can sense the exhilaration my son was feeling at the time. I'm terrible at explicitly capturing moments of emotion like this. My focus is often right-brained, striving to convey information (e.g. Two sons, eyes open, smiling faces well-lit standing in front of Devil's Tower.) I get so wrapped up in capturing the data that I overlook capturing the moment. It's strange because, after the fact, I find the 'data' pictures pretty but kind of boring. My favorites are the ones that reveal how people were feeling at the moment the picture was taken. Thank goodness my digital camera can help me capture those - even if by accident.