I was chatting with a friend during the week. She had recently been to a family reunion which was held interstate. Because travel was expensive she went alone, leaving her children at home with their father.

She had a great time and loved seeing her family members again, especially her grandparents whom she hadn’t seen for a couple of years. The only problem was that she didn’t have photos of her children with her in printed form. Like most of cousins, all her photos were digital. She had plenty of photos to share but she could only do it by handing over her phone.

Now, in this situation her phone probably won’t be lost or stolen but I wouldn’t be too keen to pass it over in many other settings, would you? Not only do you lose the phone but you lose all those precious memories stored on it.

Her biggest regret was not having real photos to share with her grandparents. When she handed her phone to her grandmother she had to explain how to use it and even once she mastered it, the photos weren’t big enough to be seen clearly. The phone had to be handed from one grandparent to the other for each photo.

Printed photos are bigger and easier to see for elderly people. They are in a format they understand and each can be viewed individually and then handed to the next person. Above all, as her grandmother said, holding a photo in your hands seems to connect you with the person you are looking at in a way a digital image can’t. Try it yourself. Hold a digital image in one hand and a photo in the other and see which one has most impact on you.

While keeping your images in digital format can be convenient, sometimes it’s worth printing them out. Choose your photos and choose your occasions. Old memories can make new ones if the format is right.

One Response to “Do You Have Photos Or Just Digital Memories?”